PHP : Array to Object

Tue, May 6, 2008

I wrote a quick and simple function which allows you to quickly convert arrays to objects. It allows you to change an array like this :

$a[‘b’];

To an object like this :

$a -> b;

Below is the function. Have fun!

<?php

function array_to_object($array = array()) {
if (!empty($array)) {
$data = false;

foreach ($array as $akey => $aval) {
$data -> {$akey} = $aval;
}

return $data;
}

return false;
}

array, convert, object, php

This post was written by:

Antonie Potgieter - who has written 46 posts on Lost-In-Code.

I (Antonie Potgieter) am a software engineer/web developer located in South Africa. My full-time work is the management of Tribulant Software and the development of its software packages.

Contact the author

4 Comments For This Post

patrick Says:
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm

function array_to_object($array = array()) {
return (object) $array;
}

lost-in-code Says:
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:42 pm

@patrick

Thank you for the type casting example. It is useful!

Hari Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:35 am

This will not work with multi dimensional arrays.

Antonie Potgieter Says:
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:12 am

@Hari

You are right, it will not work with multi-dimensional arrays.
You could create a recursive type of function with a break to handle that though.
Below is an example of how the array is converted to an object.

http://lost-in-code.com/wp-content/projects/php-array-to-object/

The example I wrote above uses type casting.
Either way, it only converts the first array instance and not the inner arrays.

Best,
Antonie

Lost-In-Code