Default associative array value in PHP

Question

Hey all,

I'm just wondering if its possible to have something like this:

$image = array(

"default" => "test.jpg",
"width" => 400,
"height" => 500

);

Then you could call:

echo $image // test.jpg
echo $image['width'] // 400

Thanks, Matt Mueller

Answer 1

Simple answer: No, that's not possible. The only thing that's somewhat similar is using PHP's weak type system and assigning the default value to the array as string until you initialize the array - but I'm not sure that's what you want.

Answer 2

No, image is an array so it will echo array()

You can however do this with __toString

class image {

    private $defaultImage = 'test.jpg';

    function __toString() {
     return $this->defaultImage;
    }

}

$image = new image;
$image->height = 400;

echo $image; // test.jpg
echo $image->height; //400