Displaying contents of VARIANT in PHP

Question

Edit: Since my first post I have come up with a minimal working example. In the code that follows, how do I access the contents of $testvar? The relevant places are shown with <--- comments in the following code.

$a = array(1.1,2.2);
$b = array(6.6,7.7);
$testvar = new VARIANT($a,VT_ARRAY|VT_VARIANT);
$testvar[0] = new VARIANT($a,VT_ARRAY|VT_VARIANT);
$testvar[1] = new VARIANT($b,VT_ARRAY|VT_VARIANT);
print "Count: ".count($testvar)."<br />\n";
print "Variant type: ";
print variant_get_type($testvar);
print "<br />\n";
print "var_dump: ";
var_dump($testvar);
print "<br />\n";
//print $testvar[0]; // <- How do I access the elements of the VARIANT ?????
foreach($testvar as $val)
{
    print count($val);
    print "<br />\n";
    print $val[0];   // <- How do I access the elements of the VARIANT ?????
    print "<br />\n";
}

Note also that I am aware of this question and answer (How do you read from a multidimensional variant array returned from a COM object in PHP?) but unfortunately the solution there uses a 32-bit COM control and I am restricted to a 64-bit platform.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Original Post Follows %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

I am calling a COM object from PHP, but am having trouble printing the contents of the returned variable when it is a VARIANT.

I'm starting with a very simple COM object that just adds two numbers together. The following code works fine, and displays the number 3:

$my_dll = new COM('write_data_type.Class1');
$my_dll->write_data_type(1, $outvar, 1.0, 2.0);
echo $outvar;

However, I cannot figure out how to work with Arrays of data. The following code works, in that it calls the COM method without throwing an error:

$a = Array(1.0,2.0);
print_r(array_values($a));

$b = Array(7.0,5.0);
print_r(array_values($b));

$my_dll = new COM('write_data_type.Class1');
$my_dll->write_data_type(1, $outvar, $a, $b);

However I can't figure out how to either access or display the value of $outvar.

If I use:

var_dump($outvar);

then the following is printed,

object(variant)#2 (0) { }

However I have no idea what that means. Is there any documentation describing what the #2, the (0) and the { } mean?

Not too surprisingly, the following fails with a message saying that the variable isn't an Array.

print_r(array_values($outvar));

Can anyone tell me how to display the contents of $outvar (or a VARIANT in general) and also extract its elements?

If it's useful, the prototype for the function being called is,

/* [helpstring][id] */ HRESULT ( STDMETHODCALLTYPE *write_data_type )( 
            IClass1 * This,
            /* [in] */ long nargout,
            /* [out][in] */ VARIANT *c,
            /* [in] */ VARIANT a,
            /* [in] */ VARIANT b);

Everything works fine when a and b are scalars. The problem I am having (as per the example data at the top of the question) is when a and b each contain more than 1 number.

EDIT: The output of

com_print_typeinfo($outvar);

is: (the formatting is mine)

class IClass1 { /* GUID={0FE9C130-58E3-4E35-BC23-11CF1280BB7D} */
/* DISPID=1610612736 */
function QueryInterface(
   /* VT_PTR [26] [in] --> ? [29] */ &$riid,
   /* VT_PTR [26] [out] --> VT_PTR [26] */ &$ppvObj ) { } /* DISPID=1610612737 */ /* VT_UI4 [19] */

function AddRef( ) { } /* DISPID=1610612738 */ /* VT_UI4 [19] */

function Release( ) { } /* DISPID=1610678272 */

function GetTypeInfoCount(
   /* VT_PTR [26] [out] --> VT_UINT [23] */ &$pctinfo ) { } /* DISPID=1610678273 */

function GetTypeInfo(
   /* VT_UINT [23] [in] */ $itinfo,
   /* VT_UI4 [19] [in] */ $lcid,
   /* VT_PTR [26] [out] --> VT_PTR [26] */ &$pptinfo ) { } /* DISPID=1610678274 */

function GetIDsOfNames(
   /* VT_PTR [26] [in] --> ? [29] */ &$riid,
   /* VT_PTR [26] [in] --> VT_PTR [26] */ &$rgszNames,
   /* VT_UINT [23] [in] */ $cNames,
   /* VT_UI4 [19] [in] */ $lcid,
   /* VT_PTR [26] [out] --> VT_I4 [3] */ &$rgdispid ) { } /* DISPID=1610678275 */

function Invoke(
   /* VT_I4 [3] [in] */ $dispidMember,
   /* VT_PTR [26] [in] --> ? [29] */ &$riid,
   /* VT_UI4 [19] [in] */ $lcid,
   /* VT_UI2 [18] [in] */ $wFlags,
   /* VT_PTR [26] [in] --> ? [29] */ &$pdispparams,
   /* VT_PTR [26] [out] --> VT_VARIANT [12] */ &$pvarResult,
   /* VT_PTR [26] [out] --> ? [29] */ &$pexcepinfo,
   /* VT_PTR [26] [out] --> VT_UINT [23] */ &$puArgErr ) { } /* DISPID=1 */ /* VT_PTR [26] */ /* property MWFlags */ var $MWFlags; /* DISPID=1 */ /* property MWFlags */ var $MWFlags; /* DISPID=2 */

function write_data_type(
   /* VT_I4 [3] [in] */ $nargout,
   /* VT_PTR [26] [in][out] --> VT_VARIANT [12] */&$c,
   /* VT_VARIANT [12] [in] */$a,
   /* VT_VARIANT [12] [in] */ $b){ /* Method write_data_type */ } /* DISPID=3 */

function MCRWaitForFigures( ) { /* Method MCRWaitForFigures */ } }