PHP Object ID

Question

Hi,

I'm using PHP 5.2. I'd like to find a way to output a unique id for every object, so it's easy when looking over logs to see which objects are the same.

In Ruby, I'd just say object.object_id to get Ruby's internal identifier for the object. There doesn't seem to be an obvious way to do this in PHP.

Is there is a built-in way of doing this? If there isn't, can you offer any other suggestions?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I don't know how Rubys object.object_id works, does it return the class ID or an instance ID?

If you want the class "ID", you could use the class name in PHP:

<?php
$instance = new Foo();
echo get_class($instance);
?>

http://de.php.net/get_class

Answer 2

Use spl_object_hash() for that.

It returns an unique identifier for each object instance, and not the name of the class, so it seems more suitable for you.

Answer 3

spl_object_hash is only for PHP 5 >= 5.2.0. Whar about PHP 5.1.x?

Answer 4

Also note this manual page:

http://php.net/manual/en/function.uniqid.php

The comments are worth reading, eg

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.uniqid.php#94959