Question

I have a class called Type:

class Type { ... }

Which has a property named $value:

class Type {
    protected $value;

    //More code here...
}

I wish that when I attempt to use a function, when I pass the object, the value of $obj->value will be passed. For example:

$obj = new Type("value");
echo $obj; //Desired output: value

I’ve tried many things, and searched everywhere, but I can’t seem to find this one. Is it even possible?

Thanks in advance. 🙂

EDIT: Maybe you misunderstood (or narrowed) my question a bit. I want it for all value types, not just the string ones, including int float and boolean

$obj = new Type(true);
echo !$obj; //Desired output: false

$obj2 = new Type(9);
echo ($obj + 1); //Desired output: 10

Answer 1

See: Magic Methods

class Type {
  public function __toString() {
    return (string)$this->value;
  }
}

If your usage of the object won’t trigger the magic you can allways use:

$someVar = (string)$obj;

Update:

Beyond strings or arrays (see ArrayAccess interface), it’s, at the moment, not possible to have php handle objects like predefined data types.