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In javascript you can easily create objects and Arrays like so:

var aObject = { foo:'bla', bar:2 }; var anArray = ['foo', 'bar', 2];

Are similar things possible in PHP?
I know that you can easily create an array using the array function, that hardly is more work then the javascript syntax, but is there a similar syntax for creating objects? Or should I just use associative arrays?

$anArray = array('foo', 'bar', 2); $anObjectLikeAssociativeArray = array('foo'=>'bla', 'bar'=>2);

So to summarize:
Does PHP have javascript like object creation or should I just use associative arrays?

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5
  • Not that I'm aware.. And why would you want to? Javascript is so limited in comparison? Objects should be described properly, and with scope and hinting, etc. Commented Jan 18, 2009 at 20:11
  • 1
    any chance you can change the accepted answer on this one? the answer to this question has changed in the last 6 years. :) Commented Jul 18, 2015 at 21:01
  • *shorthand is always one word though. Commented May 13, 2021 at 3:19
  • I came here looking for "PHPON" (PHP object notation), which would be a PHP equivalent of JSON, and which I would find handy. Apparently it doesn't exist. Anyway, I found that using var_export($var) returns what I needed, even if it's not the most compact form. So this may be off-topic, sorry, but in case it's useful to someone... I'm leaving this comment. Feel free to tell me or downgrade me or ask me to delete this if it's a bad comment. Commented Nov 24, 2022 at 15:21
  • Does this answer your question? PHP object literal Commented Apr 2, 2023 at 18:29

8 Answers 8

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58

For simple objects, you can use the associative array syntax and casting to get an object:

<?php $obj = (object)array('foo' => 'bar'); echo $obj->foo; // yields "bar"

But looking at that you can easily see how useless it is (you would just leave it as an associative array if your structure was that simple).

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2 Comments

Yeah, in that case I might just as well use a normal associative array.
working with objects is easier because if you have an intricate structure of objects and arrays and maps you can go from something like this $group["id123abc"]["people"][0]["name"] to this $group["id123abc"]->people[0]->name. This makes it easier to grasp the difference between an array, a map and an object or structure
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There was a proposal to implement this array syntax. But it was declined.

Update    The shortened syntax for arrays has been rediscussed, accepted, and is now on the way be released with PHP 5.4.

But there still is no shorthand for objects. You will probably need to explicitly cast to object:

$obj = (object) ['foo'=>'bla', 'bar'=>2];
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5 Comments

This has been implemented in PHP 5.4.
I wonder if a shorthand notation for objects will ever be implemented? I use stdClasses all the time, but they feel so awkward compared to javascript object literals.
This method doesn't work in class variable declaration. For example protected $test = (object) ['prop'=>'val']; doesn't work.
Yep, this method now works, but still it sure would be nice to have $obj = {'foo'=>'bla'}
There's an inactive RFC from 2011 for the shorthand object syntax.
11

As of PHP 5.4, you can do this:

$array = ['foo'=>'bla', 'bar'=>2];

It's not much shorter, but you'll appreciate it if you need to use a lot of hard coded nested arrays (which isn't altogether uncommon).

If you want an object, you would still need to cast each array:

$object = (object) ['foo'=>'bla', 'bar'=>2];
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11

According to the new PHP syntaxes,

You can use

$array = [1,2,3];

And for associative arrays

$array = ['name'=>'Sanket','age'=>22];

For objects you can typecast the array to object

$object = (object)['name'=>'Sanket','age'=>22];
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2

There is no object shorthand in PHP, but you can use Javascript's exact syntax, provided you use the json_encode and json_decode functions.

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1 Comment

Interesting idea, though doesn't that delay parsing until run-time? When would this have an advantage over casting an array with (object)?
2

The method provided by crescentfresh works very well but I had a problem appending more properties to the object. to get around this problem I implemented the spl ArrayObject.

class ObjectParameter extends ArrayObject { public function __set($name, $value) { $this->$name = $value; } public function __get($name) { return $this[$name]; } } //creating a new Array object $objParam = new ObjectParameter; //adding properties $objParam->strName = "foo"; //print name printf($objParam->strName); //add another property $objParam->strUser = "bar";

There is a lot you can do with this approach to make it easy for you to create objects even from arrays, hope this helps .

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1

Like the json_decode idea, wrote this:

function a($json) { return json_decode($json, true); //turn true to false to use objets instead of associative arrays } //EXAMPLE $cat = 'meow'; $array = a('{"value1":"Tester", "value2":"'.$cat.'", "value3":{"valueX":"Hi"}}'); print_r($array);
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-1

Another json_decode approach. This feels like a lot of runtime overhead just to make coding simpler, but I guess that's what languages do. The $str argument is actually less JSON and more straight Javascript (shorter). The $assoc argument is a passthrough to the json_decode $assoicative argument.

function obj( $str, $assoc=null ) { $o = ''; foreach( explode( ',', $str ) AS $v ) { $s = explode( ':', trim( $v ) ); $o .= '"' . implode( '":"', $s ) . '",'; } return json_decode( '{' . trim( $o, ',' ) . '}', $assoc ); } // example $array = obj( "val1:value 1,val2:value 2", 1 ); $object = obj( "val1:value 1,val2:value 2", 0 ); print_r( $array ); // returns Array ( [val1] => value 1 [val2] => value 2 ) print_r( $object ); stdClass Object ( [val1] => value 1 [val2] => value 2 )
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1 Comment

Or just $object = new class{var $val1 = "value 1"; var $val2 = "value 2";};

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