Iterable objects and array type hinting?

Question

I have a lot of functions that either have type hinting for arrays or use is_array() to check the array-ness of a variable.

Now I\'m starting to use ob

Answer 1

You CAN use type hinting if you switch to using iterable objects.

protected function doSomethingWithIterableObject(Iterator $iterableObject) {}

or

protected function doSomethingWithIterableObject(Traversable $iterableObject) {}

However, this can not be used to accept iterable objects and arrays at the same time. If you really want to do that could try building a wrapper function something like this:

// generic function (use name of original function) for old code
// (new code may call the appropriate function directly)
public function doSomethingIterable($iterable)
{
    if (is_array($iterable)) {
        return $this->doSomethingIterableWithArray($iterable);
    }
    if ($iterable instanceof Traversable) {
        return $this->doSomethingIterableWithObject($iterable);
    }
    return null;
}
public function doSomethingIterableWithArray(array $iterable)
{
    return $this->myIterableFunction($iterable);
}
public function doSomethingIterableWithObject(Iterator $iterable)
{
    return $this->myIterableFunction($iterable);
}
protected function myIterableFunction($iterable)
{
    // no type checking here
    $result = null;
    foreach ($iterable as $item)
    {
        // do stuff
    }
    return $result;
}