Bug #62328 [Com]: implementing __toString and a cast to string fails

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=62328&edit=1 ID: 62328 Comment by: leight at gmail dot com Reported by: jordan dot raub at dataxltd dot com Summary: implementing __toString and a cast to string fails Status: Open Type: Bug Package: SimpleXML related Operating System: Linux PHP Version: 5.4.4 Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: This is caused by a built-in classes cast_object function being called when it exists, before falling back to alternative methods of converting to a string. I have added a pull request that fixes the issue. https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/157 Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-06-14 19:13:55] jordan dot raub at dataxltd dot com Oops! Accidentally switched the expected and actual results... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-06-14 19:11:31] jordan dot raub at dataxltd dot com Description: ------------ I would expect casting to a string to have the same result as calling the __toString() function on extending a SimpleXMLElement object. I've tested this against PHP 5.3.3-7+squeeze13 with Suhosin-Patch (cli) (built: Jun 10 2012 07:31:32) Copyright (c) 1997-2009 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2010 Zend Technologies with XCache v1.3.0, Copyright (c) 2005-2009, by mOo with Xdebug v2.1.2, Copyright (c) 2002-2011, by Derick Rethans with Suhosin v0.9.32.1, Copyright (c) 2007-2010, by SektionEins GmbH and PHP 5.4.4 (cli) (built: Jun 14 2012 11:50:02) Copyright (c) 1997-2012 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.4.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2012 Zend Technologies and PHP 5.3.14 (cli) (built: Jun 14 2012 11:49:39) Copyright (c) 1997-2012 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2012 Zend Technologies Test script: --------------- <?php class UberSimpleXML extends SimpleXMLElement { public function __toString() { return 'stringification'; } } $xml = new UberSimpleXML('<xml/>'); $xml->tag = "you're it!"; echo "\nno cast\n"; echo $xml; echo "\ncast\n"; echo (string) $xml; echo "\nexplicit call\n"; echo $xml->__toString(); echo "\n"; var_dump((string) $xml); var_dump($xml->__toString()); Expected result: ---------------- no cast stringification cast explicit call stringification string(0) "" string(15) "stringification" Actual result: -------------- no cast stringification cast stringification explicit call stringification string(15) "stringification" string(15) "stringification" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=62328&edit=1