Re: can't reflection on DateTime properties?

On Sat, 04 Jun 2016 22:36:19 +0300, Rasmus Schultz <rasmus@mindplay.dk> wrote:

I wrote a library that can serialize/unserialize PHP object graphs to JSON data. Somebody reported it doesn't work on the DateTime class. Does this deliberately not work?

    $date = new DateTime();

    var_dump($date);

outputs:

    object(DateTime)#1 (3) {
      ["date"]=>
      string(19) "2016-06-04 19:30:19"
      ["timezone_type"]=>
      int(3)
      ["timezone"]=>
      string(3) "UTC"
    }

however, this...

    $reflection = new ReflectionClass('DateTime');

    var_dump($reflection->getProperties());

outputs:

    array(0) {
    }

The object clearly has properties corresponding to it's internal state, but reflection doesn't seem to report them? Also, what comes out of var_dump() appears to be something intended for human consumption? I'm guessing that's not the actual internal state of the object - most likely the internal state consists of the "timezone_type" and an integer timestamp?

Yes, DateTime/DateTimeImmutable classes define custom get_properties zend_class_entry handler: http://lxr.php.net/xref/PHP_MASTER/ext/date/php_date.c#2162 Which is called whenever you var_dump() it or foreach over the object or call a get_object_vars() on it: https://3v4l.org/tNJXN But reflection on the other hand directly uses zend_class_entry->properties_info table which DateTime does not have: http://lxr.php.net/xref/PHP_MASTER/ext/reflection/php_reflection.c#4574