What is stdClass in PHP?

Question

Please define what stdClass is.

Answer 1

stdclass is a way in which the php avoid stopping interpreting the script when there is some data must be put in a class , but unfortunately this class was not defined

Example :

 return $statement->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_CLASS  , 'Tasks');

Here the data will be put in the predefined 'Tasks' . But, if we did the code as this :

 return $statement->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_CLASS );

then the php will put the results in stdclass .

simply php says that : look , we have a good KIDS[Objects] Here but without Parents . So , we will send them to a infant child Care Home stdclass :)

Answer 2

Actually I tried creating empty stdClass and compared the speed to empty class.

class emp{}

then proceeded creating 1000 stdClasses and emps... empty classes were done in around 1100 microseconds while stdClasses took over 1700 microseconds. So I guess its better to create your own dummy class for storing data if you want to use objects for that so badly (arrays are a lot faster for both writing and reading).

Answer 3

stdClass is not an anonymous class or anonymous object

Answers here includes expressions that stdClass is an anonymous class or even anonymous object. It's not a true.

stdClass is just a regular predefined class. You can check this using instanceof operator or function get_class. Nothing special goes here. PHP uses this class when casting other values to object.

In many cases where stdClass is used by the programmers the array is better option, because of useful functions and the fact that this usecase represents the data structure not a real object.

Answer 4

stdClass is just a generic 'empty' class that's used when casting other types to objects. Despite what the other two answers say, stdClass is not the base class for objects in PHP. This can be demonstrated fairly easily:

class Foo{}
$foo = new Foo();
echo ($foo instanceof stdClass)?'Y':'N';
// outputs 'N'

I don't believe there's a concept of a base object in PHP

Answer 5

If you wanted to quickly create a new object to hold some data about a book. You would do something like this:

$book = new stdClass;
$book->title = "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban";
$book->author = "J. K. Rowling";
$book->publisher = "Arthur A. Levine Books";
$book->amazon_link = "http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0439136369";

Please check the site - http://www.webmaster-source.com/2009/08/20/php-stdclass-storing-data-object-instead-array/ for more details.

Answer 6

stClass is an empty class created by php itself , and should be used by php only, because it is not just an "empty" class , php uses stdClass to convert arrays to object style if you need to use stdClass , I recommend two better options : 1- use arrays (much faster than classes) 2- make your own empty class and use it

//example 1
$data=array('k1'=>'v1' , 'k2'=>'v2',....);

//example 2
//creating an empty class is faster than instances an stdClass
class data={}
$data=new data();
$data->k1='v1';
$data->k2='v2';

what makes someone to think about using the object style instead of array style???