PHP write objects inline

Question

Im starting to move away from using arrays in PHP as objects are so much neater and in php 5 there is no performance hits when using objects.

Currently the way I do it is:

$object = (object) array('this' => 'that', 'foo' => (object) array('bar' => 123));

However, i find it so tedious to have to typecast every time as typecasting isnt recursive...

Is there any way in php (or will there be) to do it like this or something similar:

$object = {
    'this' => 'that',
    'foo' => {
        'bar' => 123
    }
};

Answer 1

Starting from PHP 5.4 short array syntax has become available. This allows you to initialize array like this:

$myArray = ["propertyA" => 1, "propertyB" => 2];

There is no currently short object syntax in PHP as of PHP7. But you can cast short array syntax to create objects like this:

$myObject = (object) ["propertyA" => 1, "propertyB" => 2];

Looks much nicer and shorter than using the following construct:

$myObject = new \StdClass();
$myObject->propertyA = 1;
$myObject->propertyB = 2;

Answer 2

I have an alternative solution for when you receive an already built array. Say your array has n nested arrays so you have no chance of casting each one in a simple way. This would do the trick:

$object = json_decode(json_encode($unknownArray));

I would not use this in a large loop or something similar, as it is way slower than just sticking with the array sintax and live with it. Also, if an element of the array is a function or some other funny thing this would break that.

Example usage:

$unknownArray = array(
    'a' => '1',
    'b' => '2',
    'c' => '3',
    'd' => array(
        'x' => '7',
        'y' => '8',
        'z' => '9',
    ),
);
$object = json_decode(json_encode($unknownArray));
echo $object->d->x;