Same object property with different values - php

Question

I have a problem occurring in one function, for me it's strange because I thought that the behaviour of objects were different. The function is:
function getMessages($imapCon)
{
$messageHeaders = array();
$tempObj = new stdClass();
$totalMessages = imap_num_msg($imapCon);
for ($i = $totalMessages; $i > 0; $i--)
{
$headers = imap_headerinfo($imapCon, $i);
$tempObj->Unseen = $headers->Unseen;
$tempObj->fromaddress = $headers->fromaddress;
$tempObj->Date = $headers->Date;
$tempObj->Subject = $headers->Subject;
$tempObj->uid = imap_uid($imapCon, $i);
array_push($messageHeaders, $tempObj);
}
return json_encode($messageHeaders);
}
In the json encoded, I get the same values for all properties (Unseen, fromaddress, Date...). The properties are set correct, but the values are duplicated. Why?
If I do something like:
for ($i = $totalMessages; $i > 0; $i--)
{
$tempObj = new stdClass();
...
array_push($messageHeaders, $tempObj);
unset($tempObj);
}
return json_encode($messageHeaders);
}
declaring the object inside the for, it works. But I believe this is a poor fix and nor the right thing to do...

Answer 1

Creating a new $tempObj inside the loop is the right way. When you add this object into array, it's not copied, but a pointer to it is added into the array. Check this documentation - http://php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.basic.php#example-191 (look at the simple assignment, ignore the $reference variable for now).
So you end up with array containing the whole bunch of links pointing to the same object. But if you create a new $tempObj inside the loop, all objects will be different.
Alternatively, you can do this:
array_push($messageHeaders, clone($tempObj));
but although this will equally work in this case, it may not work if the $tempObj would have more complex structure, such as instances of othe classes as properties of $tempObj.
On a side note, in PHP4 your code would work as you expected as PHP4 was copying actual objects on assignment instead of just pointers as PHP5 does.

Answer 2

It looks like you are just pushing a reference into the $messageHeaders array each time, but you are reassigning the data on the same instance. Not sure where you got the idea that it was wrong to create a new $tempObj on each iteration but that is one way you could solve this. Another way would be to just add to the $messageHeaders array directly like this:
$messageHeaders[] = array(
'Unseen' => $headers->Unseen,
'fromaddress' => $headers->fromaddress,
'Date' => $headers->Date,
'Subject' => $headers->Subject,
'uid' => imap_uid($imapCon, $i)
);