Newsgroups: php.internals Path: news.php.net Xref: news.php.net php.internals:7133 Return-Path: Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list internals@lists.php.net Received: (qmail 7992 invoked by uid 1010); 15 Jan 2004 20:20:37 -0000 Delivered-To: ezmlm-scan-internals@lists.php.net Delivered-To: ezmlm-internals@lists.php.net Received: (qmail 7967 invoked from network); 15 Jan 2004 20:20:36 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO miranda.org) (209.58.150.153) by pb1.pair.com with SMTP; 15 Jan 2004 20:20:36 -0000 Received: (qmail 30053 invoked by uid 546); 15 Jan 2004 20:20:33 -0000 Received: from localhost (sendmail-bs@127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 15 Jan 2004 20:20:33 -0000 Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 15:20:32 -0500 (EST) X-X-Sender: adam@miranda.org To: Marcus Boerger cc: internals@lists.php.net In-Reply-To: <132109560218.20040115204833@marcus-boerger.de> Message-ID: References: <132109560218.20040115204833@marcus-boerger.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] __toString() with strval() and settype() From: adam@trachtenberg.com (Adam Maccabee Trachtenberg) On Thu, 15 Jan 2004, Marcus Boerger wrote: Marcus -- > Thursday, January 15, 2004, 7:04:09 PM, you wrote: > > > Given an object, $obj, should strval($obj) and settype($obj, 'string') > > return $obj->__toString() if it exists? > > > They currently do not, but (string) $obj does. > > > Are these three operations supposed to be identical, but with > > different syntax? Or are there other differences among them? > > Looking at the docs i found this: > Converting to string > You can convert a value to a string using the (string) cast, or the > strval() function. String conversion is automatically done in the scope > of an expression for you where a string is needed. This happens when > you use the echo() or print() functions, or when you compare a variable > value to a string. Reading the manual sections on Types and Type Juggling > will make the following clearer. See also settype(). > > That means strval($x) is equal to (string)$x. That's how I believe it. I see (string) as the way people who know C cast variables in PHP and strval() as the way non-C programmers cast stuff. :) Later on down on that page, it stays that you can't take a strval() of an object, but I think that's only because before __toString() there was no meaningful way to handle this. > Looking at settype() i found this: > bool settype ( mixed var, string type) > Set the type of variable var to type. > [...] > See also gettype(), type-casting and type-juggling. > > That does not sound like typecasting but it dosn't sound like no > typecasting being involved too. In other words it is unclear. I had always considered settype() to be a generic version of strval(), intval(), etc. But maybe it's not. > So i'd go for strval() calling __tostring() and hearing some other meanings > on settype(). I would like it if strval() called __toString() and I think it also makes sense for settype() to work this way, but maybe it would be good to hear from others, in particular maybe the someone who added these functions? -adam -- adam@trachtenberg.com author of o'reilly's php cookbook avoid the holiday rush, buy your copy today!