PHP array in object to string conversion (as far as I can tell)
I am developing front-end code for a web application and am facing an odd number of problems with a custom object. When I ask for an object and use print_r()
it I get this (the object is much larger, just slice it up into the appropriate code):
MemberInfo Object
(
[meta_data] => Array
(
[email_recommendations] => true
[email_updates] => false
)
)
To change something in the MemberInfo object, I just update its properties and post it back to the backend with a second function. So, for example, the page is loaded once (which gives us the object shown above), then I send a POST request with the changes on the second page load. On the second load, I take the object above, set one field differently based on POST with something like $memberInfo->meta_data['email_recommendations'] = 'false';
, and then use that version of the object to populate the page after running the refresh function (something like updateMember($memberInfo);
). However, as soon as I change the value of the property of the object, it print_r()
shows me something different:
MemberInfo Object
(
[meta_data] => {\"email_recommendations\":\"false\",\"email_updates\":\"false\"}
)
I'm sure I'm missing something very silly; does anyone have a good idea of what i should be looking for? I have checked and the backend code is not passed by reference (function call updateMember(MemberInfo $memberInfo);
), but I'm a bit wobbly at handling PHP 5 objects so I'm not sure what might be going wrong.
I don't expect deep debugging; I just need to know the general direction in which I should be looking for what is causing this change in a property, which by all rights should be an array.
Thanks in advance!
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so are you using the object after the call updateMember()
? PHP5 objects are passed by reference by default, so if you call json_encode()
on a property meta_data
it will exhibit the behavior you described.
you can send a function updateMember()
to confirm, but it looks like what is happening.
t
class MemberInfo {
function __construct() {
$this->meta_data = array(
'email_recommendations' => true,
'email_updates' => false,
);
}
}
function updateMember($meminfo) {
$meminfo->meta_data = json_encode($meminfo->meta_data);
// do stuff
}
$meminfo = new MemberInfo();
updateMember($meminfo);
print_r($meminfo); // you'll see the json encoded value for "meta_data"
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