How to convert stdClass to array recursively?

Question

I have the following object:

$a = new stdClass;
$a->id = 1;
$a->nome = 'wallace';
$a->parentes = new stdClass;

$a->parentes->pai = 'Sidney';
$a->parentes->mae = 'Maria';

I know with a cast it is possible to convert the stdClass for array, but not recursively.

So how can I convert this object to array recursively?

Answer 1

If the goal is to convert the object to array recursively, here are some tips.

Create a function

create a role for this:

function object_to_array(stdClass $object)
{
    $result = (array)$object;

    foreach($result as &$value) {

        if ($value instanceof stdClass) {
            $value = object_to_array($value);
        }
   }

    return $result;
}

To gambiarra json_encode solution combined with json_decode with True in the second parameter

json_decode(json_encode($object), true);

Answer 2

Depending on the PHP version you don’t need to create a function or anything like that, if your stdClass is just a scalar type (pure objects) you can simply use PHP’s own casting to do this (only version 7 up, 5.6 doesn’t work very well.

Example:

$object = new \StdClass;
$object->id = 12;
$object->name = "TEST"

var_dump((array)$object) // vai printar [ 'id' => 12, 'name' => 'test'];