Doc #67918 [Com]: var_export does not export a parsable string representation of stdClass objects

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=67918&edit=1 ID: 67918 Comment by: roy-orbison at devo dot net dot au Reported by: php-bugs-2014-08 at dotancohen dot com Summary: var_export does not export a parsable string representation of stdClass objects Status: Closed Type: Documentation Problem Package: Class/Object related Operating System: Linux melancholy 3.13.0-34-gener PHP Version: 5.5.16 Assigned To: cmb Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: It is sufficient to search and replace "stdClass::__set_state" with "(object)", sans quotes, to make previously exported data parsable again. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2015-09-13 20:43:36] derick@php.net This should really be fixed in the code though. stdClass should implement __set_state as per https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=48016 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2015-09-09 14:13:26] cmb@php.net This bug has been fixed in the documentation's XML sources. Since the online and downloadable versions of the documentation need some time to get updated, we would like to ask you to be a bit patient. Thank you for the report, and for helping us make our documentation better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2015-09-09 14:12:21] cmb@php.net Automatic comment from SVN on behalf of cmb Revision: http://svn.php.net/viewvc/?view=revision&revision=337793 Log: documented necessity that __set_state() must be implemented to re-eval var_export()ed code (fixes #67918) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2015-09-09 13:44:20] cmb@php.net Indeed, bug #48016 has been closed erroneously, so I re-opened it. Instead of marking this ticket as duplicate, I'm switching to documentation problem, because the current behavior has to be documented anyway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2014-08-27 17:46:47] php-bugs-2014-08 at dotancohen dot com Description: ------------ Though var_export() is designed to "outputs or return a parsable string representation of a variable", the output of stdClass objects is not "a parsable string". Witness: php > $foo = new stdClass(); php > var_export($foo); stdClass::__set_state(array( )) php > $bar = stdClass::__set_state(array()); PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined method stdClass::__set_state() in php shell code on line 1 PHP Stack trace: PHP 1. {main}() php shell code:0 PHP 2. {main}() php shell code:0 Relevant quote from the fine manual: > var_export() gets structured information about the given variable. It > is similar to var_dump() with one exception: the returned representation > is valid PHP code. Note that the output presented above is not valid PHP code. It seems that bug #48016 attacks the same issue from the other side (stdClass::__setState is not defined although var_export uses it), however that bug was closed prematurely, as the test case used to justify the close does not demonstrate that the issue is resolved. Test script: --------------- $ php -a php > $foo = new stdClass(); php > var_export($foo); stdClass::__set_state(array( )) php > $bar = stdClass::__set_state(array()); PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined method stdClass::__set_state() in php shell code on line 1 PHP Stack trace: PHP 1. {main}() php shell code:0 PHP 2. {main}() php shell code:0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=67918&edit=1