php overload = operator [duplicate]

Answer 1

No. PHP doesn't support operator overloading, with a few exceptions (as noted by @NikiC: "PHP supports overloading of some operators, like [], -> and (string) and also allows overloading some language constructs like foreach").

Answer 2

You can imitate such a feature for class-properties, by using the PHP-magic-function __set() and setting the respective property to private/protected.

class MyClass
{
    private $a;

    public function __set($classProperty, $value)
    {
        if($classProperty == 'a')
        {
            // your overloadis()-logic here, e.g.
            // if($value instanceof SomeOtherClass)
            //     $this->$classProperty = $value;
        }
    }
}

$myClassInstance = new MyClass();
$myClassInstance->a = new SomeOtherClass();
$myClassInstance->a = 'c';

Answer 3

Have a look at the PECL Operator overloading extension.