PHP Arrayable Interface

Question

I'm sure I read a while back about a new feature of PHP that was either a new magic method or a new interface so that you could implement Arrayable methods.

eg

interface Arrayable
{
    public function toArray();
}

Was I imagining it?

Not 5.4, and maybe not precisely what you mean, but was it this? http://php.net/manual/en/class.arrayaccess.php — Nanne, Aug 07 '12 at 08:05
If they were to add that feature (and I agree that it would be nice...), I'm sure they would add it as a magic method, like __toArray(). There does not appear to be one of those :(. — Corbin, Aug 07 '12 at 08:06
ArrayAccess is used to make an object behave like an array. toArray() would return a representation of the object as an array. — gawpertron, Aug 07 '12 at 08:08
Which kind of functionality would that interface add? You have missed to outline that in your question. — hakre, Jan 02 '13 at 19:14
toArray would return an Array of the object like this http://framework.zend.com/manual/1.12/en/zend.db.table.rowset.html#zend.db.table.rowset.to-array — gawpertron, Jan 03 '13 at 13:08

coatesap · Answer 1 · 2016-10-04T08:08:47.490

26

It's not in PHP itself, but Laravel has an interface that is intended for that exact purpose:

<?php namespace Illuminate\Contracts\Support;

interface Arrayable {

    /**
     * Get the instance as an array.
     *
     * @return array
     */
     public function toArray();

}

Note: In Laravel v4 the namespace was Illuminate\Support\Contracts and the interface name was ArrayableInterface.

edited Oct 04 '16 at 08:08

answered Mar 20 '14 at 14:28

coatesap

10,707
5
25
33

2

I was kind of thinking of a native interface that you could then typecast objects to an array i.e. `$array = (array) $object;` – gawpertron Mar 21 '14 at 15:08
namespace Illuminate\Contracts\Support; – alexeydemin Oct 02 '16 at 23:15
@gawpertron btw you can do that, it will result in array of property values keyed by property names - you can then access public properties, private&protected are prefixed in this conversion - more on that here in official docs: https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php#language.types.array.casting – jave.web May 24 '19 at 16:06

score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 07 '12 at 08:26

Was I imagining it?

Yes.

There is no interface (PHP 5.4 or otherwise) within PHP for handling casting to an array.
PHP 5.4.0 introduced the JsonSerializable interface, perhaps you're thinking of that?
There's also a draft RFC (one of several related) that suggests a __toArray() method; see Request for Comments: Scalar Type Casting Magic Methods

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

2

You are probably thinking of the iterator interface. If you create a class that implements this you can iterate over it as if it is an array. For example, you can use it in a foreach() loop.

Also take a look at the other predefined interfaces.

You can always write your own arrayable interface and then you can type hint for it or check it with instanceof (see example #4) as you indicated you wanted to do in your comment.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

Community

1
1

answered Aug 07 '12 at 08:08

vascowhite

18,120
9
61
77

http://www.php.net/manual/en/class.serializable.php has the same idea as the Arrayable interface. It's not about making an object traversable, but being able to return a representation of the object as an Array. – gawpertron Aug 07 '12 at 08:13
Or type casting to an array ie `$foo = (array) $arrayableObject` – gawpertron Aug 07 '12 at 08:15
Then just write a toArray() method. You are best placed to know how your object should be represented as an array. I don't think PHP could be expected to guess that for you. – vascowhite Aug 07 '12 at 08:17
I plan to, but to check if the object is an `interfaceof` of a standard interface would be tidy. – gawpertron Aug 07 '12 at 08:19

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 23 '12 at 14:28

There's this (which is fairly useless IMO) http://php.net/manual/en/class.traversable.php

and also this (which does come in handy but always requires a type check before using it)

http://php.net/manual/en/function.iterator-to-array.php

But no way to handle object to array conversion implicitly.

PHP Arrayable Interface

4 Answers4