In php how do we call (int) (array) (object) ? Where to find more info about those?

Question

I was aware of (int) and (array) but not (object) and probably others.

I'm wondering a) what is the proper name of those "things"; and, b) where can we found more information about those? (I was unable to find (object) on php.net website.

Thanks in advance, MEM

Answer 1

It's called type casting/conversion.
see http://docs.php.net/language.types.type-juggling#language.types.typecasting

Answer 2

PHP has not a typezation; And this "things" set hard the type of variables.

Answer 3

Be very careful!

If you try something like

$array = array(5, 2, 3);
$object = (object)$array;
print_r($object);
echo $object->2;

you'll end up with

PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected T_LNUMBER, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or '{' or '$' in - on line 5

Really, the safest way to convert from arrays to objects is pretty convoluted but works alright:

public function makeObjects($data)
{
    $object = (object) $data;
    foreach ($object as $property)
    {
        if (is_array($property)) $this->makeObjects($property);
    }

    return $object;
}