Comparing objects in PHP 5
| Warning |
This extension is EXPERIMENTAL. The behaviour of this extension -- including the names of its functions and anything else documented about this extension -- may change without notice in a future release of PHP. Use this extension at your own risk. |
In PHP 5, object comparison is a more complicated than in PHP 4 and more in accordance to what one will expect from an Object Oriented Language (not that PHP 5 is such a language).
When using the comparison operator (==), object variables are compared in a simple manner, namely: Two object instances are equal if they have the same attributes and values, and are instances of the same class.
On the other hand, when using the identity operator (===), object variables are identical if and only if they refer to the same instance of the same class.
An example will clarify these rules.
Example 13-3. Example of object comparison in PHP 5 <?php
function bool2str($bool) {
if ($bool === false) {
return 'FALSE';
} else {
return 'TRUE';
}
}
function compareObjects(&$o1, &$o2) {
echo 'o1 == o2 : '.bool2str($o1 == $o2)."\n";
echo 'o1 != o2 : '.bool2str($o1 != $o2)."\n";
echo 'o1 === o2 : '.bool2str($o1 === $o2)."\n";
echo 'o1 !== o2 : '.bool2str($o1 !== $o2)."\n";
}
class Flag {
var $flag;
function Flag($flag=true) {
$this->flag = $flag;
}
}
class OtherFlag {
var $flag;
function OtherFlag($flag=true) {
$this->flag = $flag;
}
}
$o = new Flag();
$p = new Flag();
$q = $o;
$r = new OtherFlag();
echo "Two instances of the same class\n";
compareObjects($o, $p);
echo "\nTwo references to the same instance\n";
compareObjects($o, $q);
echo "\nInstances of two different classes\n";
compareObjects($o, $r);
?> |
|
This example will output:
Two instances of the same class o1 == o2 : TRUE o1 != o2 : FALSE o1 === o2 : FALSE o1 !== o2 : TRUE Two references to the same instance o1 == o2 : TRUE o1 != o2 : FALSE o1 === o2 : TRUE o1 !== o2 : FALSE Instances of two different classes o1 == o2 : FALSE o1 != o2 : TRUE o1 === o2 : FALSE o1 !== o2 : TRUE |
