convert array to object in php - php

Question

In php I am converting posted data from a form to objects like this:
<?php
...some code...
$post = new stdClass;
foreach ($_POST as $key => $val)
$post->$key = trim(strip_tags($_POST[$key]));
?>
Then in my page I just echo posted data like this :
<?php echo $post->Name; ?>
<?php echo $post->Address; ?>
etc...
This works fine but I have multiple checkboxes that are part of a group and I echo the results of that, like this:
<?php
$colors = $_POST['color_type'];
if(empty($colors))
{
echo("No color Type Selected.");
}
else
{
$N = count($colors);
for($i=0; $i < $N; $i++)
{
echo($colors[$i] . ", ");
}
}
?>
That works when I am just using array, but how do I write this as object syntax?

Answer 1

using your code
function array_to_object($arr) {
$post = new stdClass;
foreach ($arr as $key => $val) {
if(is_array($val)) {
$post->$key = post_object($val);
}else{
$post->$key = trim(strip_tags($arr[$key]));
}
}
return $post;
}
$post = array_to_object($_POST);
or more complex solution
function arrayToObject($array) {
if(!is_array($array)) {
return $array;
}
$object = new stdClass();
if (is_array($array) && count($array) > 0) {
foreach ($array as $name=>$value) {
$name = strtolower(trim($name));
if (!empty($name)) {
$object->$name = arrayToObject($value);
}
}
return $object;
}
else {
return FALSE;
}
}
from http://www.richardcastera.com/blog/php-convert-array-to-object-with-stdclass

Answer 2

why would you want that? What's wrong with an array?
Use Object Oriented Programming, which might be what you are looking for. Treat it as an object, by making a class called Color and doing $colors[$i] = new Color();
This way you can do whatever you want with it, and add functions to it.

Answer 3

Pretty simple -- when you attach the color_type key to your object, it'll become an array that's a property of your object. This is most likely what you want: you probably won't want to turn that array into its own stdClass-based object, because then you won't be able to iterate through all the values (as easily). Here's a snippet:
<?php
// putting in both of these checks prevents you from throwing an E_WARNING
// for a non-existent property. E_WARNINGs aren't dangerous, but it makes
// your error messages cleaner when you don't have to wade through a bunch
// of E_WARNINGS.
if (!isset($post->color_type) || empty($post->color_type)) {
echo 'No colour type selected.'; // apologies for the Canadian spelling!
} else {
// this loop does exactly the same thing as your loop, but it makes it a
// bit more succinct -- you don't have to store the count of array values
// in $N. Bit of syntax that speeds things up!
foreach ($post->color_type as $thisColor) {
echo $thisColor;
}
}
?>
Hope this helps! Of course, in a real-life setting, you'll want to do all sorts of data validation and cleaning -- for instance, you'll want to check that the browser actually passed an array of values for $_POST['color_type'], and you'll want to clean the output in case someone is trying to inject an exploit into your page (by going echo htmlspecialchars($thisColor); -- this turns all characters like < and > into HTML entities so they can't insert JavaScript code).