PHP - Access object properties without case sensitivity?

Question

Hi,

I'm working on an old app where there is a lot of inconsistency in the naming conventions used.

Is there a way to access object properties that ignores case sensitivity?

For example, I have an object called currentuser with the attribute Name.

Is there any way to retrieve that value like this?

$currentuser->name

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Well, you can write a __get function to each of your classes that would handle such a conversion, but it's quite hacky. Something like this might work:

class HasInconsistentNaming {

    var $fooBar = 1;
    var $Somethingelse = 2;

    function __get($var) {
        $vars = get_class_vars(get_class($this));
        foreach($vars as $key => $value) {
            if(strtolower($var) == strtolower($key)) {
                return $this->$key;
                break;
            }
        }
        return null;
    }
}

Now, you can do this:

$newclass = new HasInconsistentNaming();

echo $newclass->foobar; // outputs 1

If you want to simplify your task a bit you can have your base classes inheriting from a class that provides this functionality. This way you don't have to write the function to each of your classes:

class CaseInsensitiveGetter {
    function __get($var) {
        $vars = get_class_vars(get_class($this));
        foreach($vars as $key => $value) {
            if(strtolower($var) == strtolower($key)) {
                return $this->$key;
                break;
            }
        }
        return null;
    }
}

class HasInconsistentNaming extends CaseInsensitiveGetter {
    var $fooBar = 1;
    var $Somethingelse = 2;
}

But I'd strongly discourage you from taking this approach. In the long run, it would be much smarter to just convert all variables into a consistent naming scheme.

Answer 2

Interesting question. There are two possible ways to achieve what you want. Either you can use foreach to interate through the array or have a look at the php reflection functionalities (http://www.php.net/manual/en/book.reflection.php).

Answer 3

Not directly but you could create some kind of wrapper function:

function get_property($object, $property) {
    // check for lower case property
    $property = strtolower($property);
    if(property_exists($object, $property)) {
         return $object->$property;
    }
    // check for capitalized property
    $property = ucwords($property);
    if(property_exists($object, $property)) {
         return $object->$property;
    }
    else {
       throw new Exception("Property does not exist.");
    }
}

and use it like this:

$name = get_property($currentuser, 'name');

This way you don't have to touch any class. It just might not be that readable.

See property_exists, ucwords.