PHP equivalent of .NET/Java's toString()

You can use the casting operators:

$myText = (string)$myVar;

There are more details for string casting and conversion in the Strings section of the PHP manual, including special handling for booleans and nulls.

This is done with typecasting:

$strvar = (string) $var; // Casts to string
echo $var; // Will cast to string implicitly
var_dump($var); // Will show the true type of the variable

In a class you can define what is output by using the magical method __toString. An example is below:

class Bottles {
    public function __toString()
    {
        return 'Ninety nine green bottles';
    }
}

$ex = new Bottles;
var_dump($ex, (string) $ex);
// Returns: instance of Bottles and "Ninety nine green bottles"

Some more type casting examples:

$i = 1;

// int 1
var_dump((int) $i);

// bool true
var_dump((bool) $i);

// string "1"
var_dump((string) 1);

You can either use typecasting:

$var = (string)$varname;

or StringValue:

$var = strval($varname);

or SetType:

$success = settype($varname, 'string');
// $varname itself becomes a string

They all work for the same thing in terms of Type-Juggling.

How do I convert the value of a PHP variable to string?

A value can be converted to a string using the (string) cast or the strval() function. (Edit: As Thomas also stated).

It also should be automatically casted for you when you use it as a string.

You are looking for strval:

string strval ( mixed $var )

Get the string value of a variable. See the documentation on string for more information on converting to string.

This function performs no formatting on the returned value. If you are looking for a way to format a numeric value as a string, please see sprintf() or number_format().

For primitives just use (string)$var or print this variable straight away. PHP is dynamically typed language and variable will be casted to string on the fly.

If you want to convert objects to strings you will need to define __toString() method that returns string. This method is forbidden to throw exceptions.

Putting it in double quotes should work:

$myText = "$myVar";

I think this question is a bit misleading since, toString() in Java isn't just a way to cast something to a String. That is what casting via (string) or String.valueOf() does, and it works as well in PHP.

// Java
String myText = (string) myVar;

// PHP
$myText = (string) $myVar;

Note that this can be problematic as Java is type-safe (see here for more details).

But as I said, this is casting and therefore not the equivalent of Java's toString().

toString in Java doesn't just cast an object to a String. It instead will give you the String representation. And that's what __toString() in PHP does.

// Java
class SomeClass{
    public String toString(){
        return "some string representation";
    }
}

// PHP
class SomeClass{
    public function __toString()
    {
        return "some string representation";
    }
}

And from the other side:

// Java
new SomeClass().toString(); // "Some string representation"

// PHP
strval(new SomeClass); // "Some string representation"

What do I mean by "giving the String representation"? Imagine a class for a library with millions of books.

• Casting that class to a String would (by default) convert the data, here all books, into a string so the String would be very long and most of the time not very useful either.
• To String instead will give you the String representation, i.e., only the name of the library. This is shorter and therefore gives you less, but more important information.

These are both valid approaches but with very different goals, neither is a perfect solution for every case and you have to chose wisely which fits better for your needs.

Sure, there are even more options:

$no = 421337  // A number in PHP
$str = "$no"; // In PHP, stuff inside "" is calculated and variables are replaced
$str = print_r($no, true); // Same as String.format();
$str = settype($no, 'string'); // Sets $no to the String Type
$str = strval($no); // Get the string value of $no
$str = $no . ''; // As you said concatenate an empty string works too

All of these methods will return a String, some of them using __toString internally and some others will fail on Objects. Take a look at the PHP documentation for more details.

The documentation says that you can also do:

$str = "$foo";

It's the same as cast, but I think it looks prettier.

Source:

• Russian
• English

You can always create a method named .ToString($in) that returns

$in . '';  

If you're converting anything other than simple types like integers or booleans, you'd need to write your own function/method for the type that you're trying to convert, otherwise PHP will just print the type (such as array, GoogleSniffer, or Bidet).

PHP is dynamically typed, so like Chris Fournier said, "If you use it like a string it becomes a string". If you're looking for more control over the format of the string then printf is your answer.

__toString method or (string) cast

$string=(string)$variable;  //force make string 

you can treat an object as a string

class Foo
{

  public function __toString()
  {
     return "foo";
  }

}

echo new Foo(); //foo

also, have another trick, ı assume ı have int variable ı want to make string it

$string=''.$intvariable;

This can be difficult in PHP because of the way data types are handled internally. Assuming that you don't mean complex types such as objects or resources, generic casting to strings may still result in incorrect conversion. In some cases pack/unpack may even be required, and then you still have the possibility of problems with string encoding. I know this might sound like a stretch but these are the type of cases where standard type juggling such as $myText = $my_var .''; and $myText = (string)$my_var; (and similar) may not work. Otherwise I would suggest a generic cast, or using serialize() or json_encode(), but again it depends on what you plan on doing with the string.

The primary difference is that Java and .NET have better facilities with handling binary data and primitive types, and converting to/from specific types and then to string from there, even if a specific case is abstracted away from the user. It's a different story with PHP where even handling hex can leave you scratching your head until you get the hang of it.

I can't think of a better way to answer this which is comparable to Java/.NET where _toString() and such methods are usually implemented in a way that's specific to the object or data type. In that way the magic methods __toString() and __serialize()/__unserialize() may be the best comparison.

Also keep in mind that PHP doesn't have the same concepts of primitive data types. In essence every data type in PHP can be considered an object, and their internal handlers try to make them somewhat universal, even if it means loosing accuracy such as when converting a float to int. You can't deal with types as you can in Java unless your working with their zvals within a native extension.

While PHP userspace doesn't define int, char, bool, or float as an objects, everything is stored in a zval structure which is as close to an object that you can find in C, with generic functions for handling the data within the zval. Every possible way to access data within PHP goes down to the zval structure and the way the zend vm allows you to handles them without converting them to native types and structures. With Java types you have finer grained access to their data and more ways to to manipulate them, but also greater complexity, hence the strong type vs weak type argument.

These links my be helpful:

https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.type-juggling.php https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.magic.php