Does in_array()
do object comparison where it checks that all attributes are the same?
What if $obj1 === $obj2
, will it just do pointer comparison instead?
I'm using an ORM, so I'd rather loop over the objects testing if $obj1->getId()
is already in the array if it does object comparison. If not, in_array
is much more concise.
in_array()
does loose comparisons ($a == $b
) unless you pass TRUE
to the third argument, in which case it does strict comparisons ($a === $b
).
Semantically, in_array($obj, $arr)
is identical to this:
foreach ($arr as &$member) {
if ($member == $obj) {
return TRUE;
}
}
return FALSE;
...and in_array($obj, $arr, TRUE)
is identical to this:
foreach ($arr as &$member) {
if ($member === $obj) {
return TRUE;
}
}
return FALSE;
...and to quote the manual on what this actually checks:
When using the comparison operator (==), object variables are compared in a simple manner, namely: Two object instances are equal if they have the same attributes and values, and are instances of the same class.
On the other hand, when using the identity operator (===), object variables are identical if and only if they refer to the same instance of the same class.
Objects are always references in PHP 5+ and can only be copied (thus creating a new object) by using clone
.
That means you should be able to use in_array()
.