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Typecasting Objects

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Jul 02.2009

Can I typecast variables to particular kinds of objects? For example:

[code]class Shape {}
class Circle extends Shape {}
$o = new Circle();

// From here on out, $o should be an instance of Shape as far as PHP is concerned
$o = (Shape)$o;[/code]

The only solution I’ve found so far is to serialize the object, manipulate the string, then unserialize. But this seems less than ideal. Is there a better way?

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PHP

3 Comments(s) ↴

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@MindzaiJul 02.2009 — If Circle extends Shape, then $o is already an instance of Shape as far as PHP is concerned.

[code=php]
class Shape {}
class Circle extends Shape {}
$o = new Circle();
var_dump($o instanceof Shape); // bool(true)
[/code]
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@Jeff_MottauthorJul 02.2009 — Because I'm caching objects. If I cast a Circle object to a Shape and then cache it, then in another script invocation when I load the cache and restore the object, I can skip loading all the Shape subclasses.

So that's the why. Do you have any suggestions [i]how[/i] to do this?
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@Jeff_MottauthorJul 02.2009 — Perhaps my words were a bit murky. I want to cast an object such that...

class Shape {}
class Circle extends Shape {}
$o = new Circle();

$o = (Shape)$o;
get_class($o) == 'Shape'; [color=green]// <-- I want this to be true; PHP should think it's of class Shape[/color]
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