Is Binary cast available in PHP?

Question

PHP has a cast (that until then I did not know), called binary.

Example of Handbook:

$binary = (binary)$string;
$binary = b"binary string";

According to the PHP Handbook:

(Binary) - converts to binary string

I saw that a user still posted the following:

Cast a string to Binary using PHP < 5.2.1

(convert a string to binary in versions prior to PHP 5.2.1)

$binary = unpack('c*', $string);

With the test I performed in PHP 5.6, the result was as follows::

$string = "My String";

$binary = (binary)$string;
$binary = b"binary string";

var_dump($binary); // string(13) "binary string"

That is, returns the same value as the string (even with the cast for binary).

The question is: is this functionality really available (being bug of my PHP) or it will just be a future implementation (as they say: "In PHP 6")?

Answer 1

First the manual says it will be available in PHP 6 (which is a version that died). Or another version since even in this PHP is a mess. So you can’t test it now.

This kind of operation shouldn’t be a cast. But it’s PHP, we should be used to it by now.

You are changing the value obtained with the cast. I can’t imagine why. So it gave the result shown. If you take the new assignment after the cast, in theory would give the expected result if still correct another error.

There are no real examples of how this will work so it’s hard to understand what the shape will be, I’ll guess here what might be:

$string = "10011101";
$binary = (binary)$string;
$binary = b"10011101";

In both cases the number will be an integer worth 157. I imagine.

In PHP 5.2.1 you can do it another way, not this way.

I’ve already told you about the quality of the manual, especially the Portuguese version. This may not even be present in the next version of PHP. It may be that this was discussed but never decided to put in the language. Do not rely on speculation.

Behold working in the ideone. And in the repl it.. Also put on the Github for future reference.

Answer 2

Following @gmsantos' instructions, I created this Bug Reporting there in PHP.

According to the response of the user identified as [email protected], the reason for the binary not function as expected is as follows:

(Binary) is a forward Compatibility token for the now abandoned "PHP 6". It behaves the same way as Doing a (String) Cast in "PHP 5".

If anyone can help me translate, thank you. But I will give an interpretation (and not a translation):

This is a keyword that was added in advance to the (now abandoned) PHP 6. The cast for binary behaves in the same way as cast to string in PHP 5.