Type casting for user defined objects

Question

Just like we do with __ToString, is there a way to define a method for casting?

$obj = (MyClass) $another_class_obj;

Answer 1

You can create two reflection object then copy values to other example can be found at https://github.com/tarikflz/phpCast

    public static function cast($sourceObject)
{
    $destinationObject = new self();
    try {
        $reflectedSource = new ReflectionObject($sourceObject);
        $reflectedDestination = new ReflectionObject($destinationObject);
        $sourceProperties = $reflectedSource->getProperties();
        foreach ($sourceProperties as $sourceProperty) {
            $sourceProperty->setAccessible(true);
            $name = $sourceProperty->getName();
            $value = $sourceProperty->getValue($sourceObject);
            if ($reflectedDestination->hasProperty($name)) {
                $propDest = $reflectedDestination->getProperty($name);
                $propDest->setAccessible(true);
                $propDest->setValue($destinationObject, $value);
            } else {
                $destinationObject->$name = $value;
            }
        }
    } catch (ReflectionException $exception) {
        return $sourceObject;
    }
    return $destinationObject;
}