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Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2017 00:42:34 +0200
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To: Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [Discussion] is_string(), string type
 andobjectsimplementing __toString()
From: narf@devilix.net (Andrey Andreev)

Hi Andrea,

On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 8:44 PM, Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me> wrote:
> Fleshgrinder wrote:
>>
>> On 3/8/2017 7:36 PM, Andrea Faulds wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Andrey Andreev wrote:
>>>>
>>>> The question is rather "is this value a string?", only with the added
>>>> assumption that __toString() objects are treated as "string objects"
>>>> and thus fulfill the condition (another reason why I went for an
>>>> is_string() parameter).
>>>
>>>
>>> This is a faulty assumption. The presence of __toString() doesn't mean
>>> the object is a string, or intended to be used like one.
>>>
>>
>> What is it then in your book?
>>
>
> It means the object can be converted to a string. But such a conversion m=
ay
> entail a loss of information and not be equivalent to the object itself. =
It
> might be a =E2=80=9Chuman-readable=E2=80=9D form, for instance.
>

There will be loss of information most of the time, indeed. That's not
the point; broadly speaking, you'd have to alias __toString() to
serialize() in order to avoid that.

If it has an explicitly declared string representation, I want to have
the option to use that easily, without writing boilerplate code to
filter-out every other type.

Cheers,
Andrey.