Having trouble understanding some PHP code

[RaoufOsman]

So I am an intern doing PHP development, the issue is I am having a hard time understanding what a colleague of mine wrote:

 

$x=(array) $child->tid;

$tagname = (string) $child->name[0];

 

Just in a broad sense why does he initialize $x = (array)? etc.. I never seen this syntax, my OOP isnt as well as it should be, but any help is appreciated. I cant post the code because my boss is wary of people stealing code. 

 

 

[jairathnem]

$x = the variable

(array) = what to typecast to. In this case array

$child = object of a class

tid = variable of the class

 

 

 

experts, please correct me if I am wrong.

[.josh]

It's basically a cheap (and often dangerous) way to convert one variable type to another.

 

There's not enough info here to be sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say $child->tid is an object (like maybe a json object from a request or response or xml object) being converted to an array, most likely for no other reason than it being easier for whoever coded it to handle the data (e.g. loop through it).

 

$child->name[0] is probably already expected to be a string but is being typecasted to string type to be safe (e.g. maybe it's possible $child->name[0] could also be a number).

 

For the latter, that's usually not needed, since php is loosely typed and will do type conversion automatically. But there are some php functions that php fails on. For example, ctype_digit checks to see if a string only contains numbers, but if you try to do ctype_digit(12345) you will get an error (crazy, huh?), so you have to typecast to keep it from breaking.

[RaoufOsman]

You guys are great!! Jairathnem your answer made everything click.

 

Thanks Josh for the clarification. Btw good guess because that's basically what it is doing.