How to get protected property of object in PHP

I have a object having some protected property that I want to get and set. The object looks like

Fields_Form_Element_Location Object
(
[helper] => formText
[_allowEmpty:protected] => 1
[_autoInsertNotEmptyValidator:protected] => 1
[_belongsTo:protected] => 


[_description:protected] => 
[_disableLoadDefaultDecorators:protected] => 
[_errorMessages:protected] => Array
    (
    )

[_errors:protected] => Array
    (
    )
[_isErrorForced:protected] => 
[_label:protected] => Current City


[_value:protected] => 93399
[class] => field_container field_19 option_1 parent_1
)

I want to get value property of the object. When I try $obj->_value or $obj->value it generates error. I searched and found the solution to use PHP Reflection Class. It worked on my local but on server PHP version is 5.2.17 So I cannot use this function there. So any solution how to get such property?

That's what "protected" is meant for, as the Visibility chapter explains:

Members declared protected can be accessed only within the class itself and by inherited and parent classes.

If you need to access the property from outside, pick one:

• Don't declare it as protected, make it public instead
• Write a couple of functions to get and set the value (getters and setters)

If you don't want to modify the original class (because it's a third-party library you don't want to mess) create a custom class that extends the original one:

class MyFields_Form_Element_Location extends Fields_Form_Element_Location{
}

... and add your getter/setter there.