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@victorbstan
Created December 17, 2010 04:18
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recursively cast a PHP object to array
<?php
/*
This function saved my life.
found on: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums//showthread.php?t=438748
by: crvandyke
It takes an object, and when all else if/else/recursive functions fail to convert the object into an associative array, this one goes for the kill. Who would'a thunk it?!
*/
$array = json_decode(json_encode($object), true);
@arnisjuraga
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Nice!

@fendis0709
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@victorbstan thanks man.

@anver
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anver commented Jul 29, 2018

@mdeboer Thank you
Saved ton of my time

@quasi635
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quasi635 commented Aug 8, 2018

I love the simplicity. Thank you!

@desjob
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desjob commented Oct 5, 2018

am i the only one here that minds the "wasted" cycles of json encoding + decoding?

@Okipa
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Okipa commented Dec 10, 2018

In case of complex objects, you will have serious performance issues with json_decode(json_encode())

@yoshkinawa
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Use this function to access also private and protected arguments

function obj2arr( $obj, $nestLevel = 0 ) {

// limit nesting level (for performance and not to go over the maximum)
if ( $nestLevel > 15 ) return;

// if current member is an object - turn it to an array
if( is_object( $obj ) ) $obj = (array) $obj;

// if current member is an array - recursively call this function to each of his children
if( is_array( $obj ) ) {

	$return = [];

	foreach( $obj as $key => $val ) {

		// correct private and protected key names
		$aux = explode ( "\0", $key );
		$newkey = $aux[ count( $aux ) - 1 ];
		$return[ $newkey ] = obj2arr( $val, $nestLevel + 1 );

	}

} else $return = $obj;

// return transformed object
return $return;

}

@scmrus
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scmrus commented Aug 29, 2019

Use ArrayObject class and cast it to array (or use ArrayObject::getArrayCopy() instead). It's much much faster.

php > $x = [1, (object) ['x'=>'y'], 3];
php > var_dump($x);
array(3) {
  [0] =>
  int(1)
  [1] =>
  class stdClass#1 (1) {
    public $x =>
    string(1) "y"
  }
  [2] =>
  int(3)
}
php > var_dump((new ArrayObject($x))->getArrayCopy());
array(3) {
  [0] =>
  int(1)
  [1] =>
  class stdClass#1 (1) {
    public $x =>
    string(1) "y"
  }
  [2] =>
  int(3)
}

@c01nd01r
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c01nd01r commented Sep 2, 2019

Use ArrayObject class and cast it to array (or use ArrayObject::getArrayCopy() instead). It's much much faster.

ArrayObject::getArrayCopy() return shallow copy of array.

@machitgarha
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@scmrus and @c01nd01r
I actually understood this after trying it, but I forgot to remove the comment from here. Sorry.
BTW, a recursive function in PHP is faster than the JSON way.

@holtz-mb
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Be care full if use encodings other than UTF-8. If you use that, json_encode will return false.

See here https://www.php.net/manual/de/function.json-encode.php#115733

@WhereJuly
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WhereJuly commented Mar 25, 2020

This will not be be applicable if the properties of the object you are trying to convert are declared as private

You could always create the getter for the object like this (implemented in a form of an universal trait)

trait ThrowingGetter
{
    public function __get($propertyName)
    {
        if (property_exists($this, $propertyName)) {
            return $this->$propertyName;
        }
        throw new \UnexpectedValueException(sprintf('Niceprice: The property \'%s\' does not exist on %s class.', $propertyName, __CLASS__));
    }
}

And use it in as many objects as you like (use ThrowingGetter).

This way you keep your object immutable, read-only.

@WhereJuly
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The initial

$array = json_decode(json_encode($object), true);

will not work straight like this if your nested objects are custom, not stdClass type objects. For this to work on these too you should implement JsonSerializable interface on your custom nested objects. See the respective PHP documentation.

@iam-raihan
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iam-raihan commented Aug 3, 2020

just in case performance matters

function objectToArray($object)
{
    if(!is_object($object) && !is_array($object)) {
        return $object;
    }

    return array_map('objectToArray', (array) $object);
}

from SO

@jonyen
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jonyen commented Dec 29, 2020

$array = json_decode(json_encode($object), true);

Absolutely brilliant. You, sir, are a genius.

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