PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (original) (raw)

(PHP 8)

Introduction

The Stringable interface denotes a class as having a __toString() method. Unlike most interfaces,Stringable is implicitly present on any class that has the magic __toString() method defined, although it can and should be declared explicitly.

Its primary value is to allow functions to type check against the union type string|Stringable to accept either a string primitive or an object that can be cast to a string.

Interface synopsis

interface **Stringable {

/* Methods */

}

Stringable Examples

Example #1 Basic Stringable Usage

`<?php
class IPv4Address implements Stringable {
public function __construct(
private string $oct1,
private string $oct2,
private string $oct3,
private string $oct4,
) {}

public function

__toString(): string {
return "$this->oct1.$this->oct2.$this->oct3.$this->oct4";
}
}

function

showStuff(string|Stringable $value) {
// For a Stringable, this will implicitliy call __toString().
print $value;
}$ip = new IPv4Address('123', '234', '42', '9');showStuff($ip);
?>`

The above example will output something similar to: