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Reply-To: Levi Morrison <levi.morrison@datadoghq.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2020 08:19:03 -0700
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To: Marco Pivetta <ocramius@gmail.com>
Cc: Steven Wade <stevenwadejr@gmail.com>, PHP Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC - discussion] __toArray()
From: internals@lists.php.net ("Levi Morrison via internals")

Sorry if it's been said in the discussion so far, but I do not see why
`print_r` should convert anything to an array. It accepts multiple
kinds of types including strings, numbers, and so on, and I think
adding this behavior to `print_r` is a different thing than wanting a
standard way for objects to be converted into arrays.

And on that note, what is the motivation for wanting a magic method
for converting an object into an array? Why not make it an explicit
operation? I do not see the point of the magic here, except _maybe_
for adding it to `ArrayObject` or something to allow it to work with
the array_* functions that work without references, in which case I
think we think this RFC is the wrong approach as it is inadequate for
that purpose.