note 72532 added to language.oop5.magic

Since PHP 5.2.0, you'll always get an error like this: "Object of class foo could not be converted to string" When one tries to use an object as string, for instance: class Test{} echo new Test(); Thus, one way to avoid this problem is to programme the magic method __toString. However, in the older versions, it would output a string saying that it was an object together a unique obj id. Therefore, the __toString() method must comply with this behaviour. My suggestion: class Test{ function __toString(){ if(!isset($this->__uniqid)) $this->__uniqid = md5(uniqid(rand(), true)); return(get_class($this)."@".$this->__uniqid); } } echo new Test(); would output something like this: Test@6006ba04f5569544c10a588b04849cf7 ---- Server IP: 200.185.126.100 Probable Submitter: 200.213.210.2 (proxied: 192.168.253.212) ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.magic.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/72532 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/72532/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/72532/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/72532/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/72532/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/72532/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/72532/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/72532 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/72532 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php