How to Cast Objects in PHP

Question

Ive some classes that share some attributes, and i would like to do something like:

$dog = (Dog) $cat;

is it possible or is there any gener

Answer 1

You can use above function for casting not similar class objects (PHP >= 5.3)

/**
 * Class casting
 *
 * @param string|object $destination
 * @param object $sourceObject
 * @return object
 */
function cast($destination, $sourceObject)
{
    if (is_string($destination)) {
        $destination = new $destination();
    }
    $sourceReflection = new ReflectionObject($sourceObject);
    $destinationReflection = new ReflectionObject($destination);
    $sourceProperties = $sourceReflection->getProperties();
    foreach ($sourceProperties as $sourceProperty) {
        $sourceProperty->setAccessible(true);
        $name = $sourceProperty->getName();
        $value = $sourceProperty->getValue($sourceObject);
        if ($destinationReflection->hasProperty($name)) {
            $propDest = $destinationReflection->getProperty($name);
            $propDest->setAccessible(true);
            $propDest->setValue($destination,$value);
        } else {
            $destination->$name = $value;
        }
    }
    return $destination;
}

EXAMPLE:

class A 
{
  private $_x;   
}

class B 
{
  public $_x;   
}

$a = new A();
$b = new B();

$x = cast('A',$b);
$x = cast('B',$a);

Answer 2

There is no built-in method for type casting of user defined objects in PHP. That said, here are several possible solutions:

1) Use a function like the one below to deserialize the object, alter the string so that the properties you need are included in the new object once it's deserialized.

function cast($obj, $to_class) {
  if(class_exists($to_class)) {
    $obj_in = serialize($obj);
    $obj_out = 'O:' . strlen($to_class) . ':"' . $to_class . '":' . substr($obj_in, $obj_in[2] + 7);
    return unserialize($obj_out);
  }
  else
    return false;
}

2) Alternatively, you could copy the object's properties using reflection / manually iterating through them all or using get_object_vars().

This article should enlighten you on the "dark corners of PHP" and implementing typecasting on the user level.

Answer 3

PHP provides a very simple way of doing this by using:

(object) ['id'=>1,'name'=>'cat']

https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.object.php

In your case you try this:

$dog = json_encode($dog);

$cat = (object) json_decode($dog)

Answer 4

If the object you are trying to cast from or to has properties that are also user-defined classes, and you don't want to go through reflection, you can use this.

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);
namespace Your\Namespace\Here
{
  use Zend\Logger; // or your logging mechanism of choice
  final class OopFunctions
  {
    /**
     * @param object $from
     * @param object $to
     * @param Logger $logger
     *
     * @return object
     */
     static function Cast($from, $to, $logger)
    {
      $logger->debug($from);
      $fromSerialized = serialize($from);
      $fromName = get_class($from);
      $toName = get_class($to);
      $toSerialized = str_replace($fromName, $toName, $fromSerialized);
      $toSerialized = preg_replace("/O:\d*:\"([^\"]*)/", "O:" . strlen($toName) . ":\"$1", $toSerialized);
      $toSerialized = preg_replace_callback(
        "/s:\d*:\"[^\"]*\"/", 
        function ($matches)
        {
          $arr = explode(":", $matches[0]);
          $arr[1] = mb_strlen($arr[2]) - 2;
          return implode(":", $arr);
        }, 
        $toSerialized
      );
      $to = unserialize($toSerialized);
      $logger->debug($to);
      return $to;
    }
  }
}

Answer 5

You do not need casting. Everything is dynamic.

I have a class Discount.
I have several classes that extends this class:
ProductDiscount
StoreDiscount
ShippingDiscount
...

Somewhere in the code I have:

$pd = new ProductDiscount();
$pd->setDiscount(5, ProductDiscount::PRODUCT_DISCOUNT_PERCENT);
$pd->setProductId(1);

$this->discounts[] = $pd;

.....

$sd = new StoreDiscount();
$sd->setDiscount(5, StoreDiscount::STORE_DISCOUNT_PERCENT);
$sd->setStoreId(1);

$this->discounts[] = $sd;

And somewhere I have:

foreach ($this->discounts as $discount){

    if ($discount->getDiscountType()==Discount::DISCOUNT_TYPE_PRODUCT){

        $productDiscount = $discount; // you do not need casting.
        $amount = $productDiscount->getDiscountAmount($this->getItemTotalPrice());
        ...
    }

}// foreach

Where getDiscountAmount is ProductDiscount specific function, and getDiscountType is Discount specific function.

Answer 6

I think that the best approach is to just create a new instance of a class and than assign the object. Here's what I would do:

public function ($someVO) {

     $someCastVO = new SomeVO();
     $someCastVO = $someVO;
     $someCastVO->SomePropertyInVO = "123";

}

Doing this will give you code hinting in most IDEs and help ensure you are using the correct properties.