Is it possible to overload operators in PHP?

If you are using PHP5 (and you should be), take a look at the SPL ArrayObject classes. The documentation isn't too good, but I think if you extend ArrayObject, you'd have your "fake" array.

EDIT: Here's my quick example; I'm afraid I don't have a valuable use case though:

class a extends ArrayObject {
    public function offsetSet($i, $v) {
        echo 'appending ' . $v;
        parent::offsetSet($i, $v);
    }
}

$a = new a;
$a[] = 1;

PHP's concept of overloading and operators (see Overloading, and Array Operators) is not like C++'s concept. I don't believe it is possible to overload operators such as +, -, [], etc.

Possible Solutions

• Implement SPL ArrayObject (as mentioned by cbeer).
• Implement Iterator (if ArrayObject is too slow for you).
• Use the PECL operator extension (as mentioned by Benson).

It appears not to be a feature of the language, see this bug. However, it looks like there's a package that lets you do some sort of overloading.

Put simply, no; and I'd suggest that if you think you need C++-style overloading, you may need to rethink the solution to your problem. Or maybe consider not using PHP.

To paraphrase Jamie Zawinski, "You have a problem and think, 'I know! I'll use operator overloading!' Now you have two problems."