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 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] author of o'reilly's php cookbook avoid the holiday rush, buy your copy today! -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
