[PATCH] Make var_export() output "(object)array(..." instead of "stdClass::__set_state(..." for stdClass

Am 14.03.2017 um 20:26 schrieb Fleshgrinder:

Hi everyone,

Since stdClass has no __set_state method, var_export() produces unusable
output if given an object of that class. I wrote a patch that would make
var_export() produce a cast to object instead, which could be evaluated
to get back a stdClass:

https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/2420

Any thoughts/comments?

If you're wondering about whether a __set_state method should be added
to stdClass, I posted some thoughts in the pull request discussion already.

Thanks!

I actually already used __set_state occasionally for userland classes.
Adding __set_state to stdClass seems to be more consistent with the rest
of PHP, rather than special casing it in one method. I cannot see any
issues with this to be honest.

Personally I would like to have a more reasonable way in general. No
special case and no magic method.

So my proposal then would be to try to add a class cast operator (needs
an own RFC) and later to with this approach on var_export.

Example:

class Foo {}

$std = new stdClass;
$foo = new Foo;
$arr = ['arr' => 'arr'];

var_dump((object)$std); // no change
var_dump((array)$std); // no change
var_dump((Foo)$std); // object of class Foo
var_dump((object)$foo); // no change
var_dump((stdClass)$foo); // object of class stdClass
var_dump((array)$foo); // no change
var_dump((array)$arr); // no change
var_dump((object)$arr); // no change
var_dump((stdClass)$arr); // object of class stdClass
var_dump((Foo)$arr); // object of class Foo

Thoughts?

Marc

Hi everyone,

Since stdClass has no __set_state method, var_export() produces unusable
output if given an object of that class. I wrote a patch that would make
var_export() produce a cast to object instead, which could be evaluated
to get
back a stdClass:

https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/2420

Any thoughts/comments?

As original author of var_export, I approve of this — including not
adding __set_state().

cheers,
Derick

I'm also +1 on this, and also prefer not having __set_state(). An object
cast is both more idiomatic and more performant.

Additionally I feel that adding methods to stdClass will muddy the waters
-- for example, this means that extending stdClass is no longer entirely
unreasonable, as you might want to do it to reuse the __set_state()
implementation. Not something I want to see happening.

Nikita

I do not disagree, just want to make an observation.

If multiple properties or array keys reference the same instance of
\stdClass, there will be multiple instances with identical values after a
round-trip with var_export() + eval().
This is not necessarily a problem, just something to be aware of.

Since stdClass has no __set_state method, var_export() produces unusable
output if given an object of that class. I wrote a patch that would make
var_export() produce a cast to object instead, which could be evaluated
to get back a stdClass:

https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/2420

Any thoughts/comments?

If you're wondering about whether a __set_state method should be added
to stdClass, I posted some thoughts in the pull request discussion
already.

FTR: If nobody objects, I'll merge this PR into master on 2018-07-12, so
that it goes into PHP 7.3.

See https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/2420#issuecomment-402561913.

--
Christoph M. Becker

Christoph M. Becker wrote:

Since stdClass has no __set_state method, var_export() produces unusable
output if given an object of that class. I wrote a patch that would make
var_export() produce a cast to object instead, which could be evaluated
to get back a stdClass:

https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/2420

Any thoughts/comments?

If you're wondering about whether a __set_state method should be added
to stdClass, I posted some thoughts in the pull request discussion already.

FTR: If nobody objects, I'll merge this PR into master on 2018-07-12, so
that it goes into PHP 7.3.

See https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/2420#issuecomment-402561913.

And so it was done:
https://github.com/php/php-src/commit/e4e9cd835550990a6b8df7c61d59b6cc0da9b5b2

Thanks, Cristoph! :)

--
Andrea Faulds
https://ajf.me/