iterate over properties of a php class

Question

How can i iterate over the (public or private) properties of a php class?

Solution

tl;dr

// iterate public vars of class instance $class
foreach (get_object_vars($class) as $prop_name => $prop_value) {
   echo "$prop_name: $prop_value\n";
}

Further Example:

http://php.net/get_object_vars

Gets the accessible non-static properties of the given object according to scope.

class foo {
    private $a;
    public $b = 1;
    public $c;
    private $d;
    static $e; // statics never returned

    public function test() {
        var_dump(get_object_vars($this)); // private's will show
    }
}

$test = new foo;

var_dump(get_object_vars($test)); // private's won't show

$test->test();

Output:

array(2) {
  ["b"]=> int(1)
  ["c"]=> NULL
}

array(4) {
  ["a"]=> NULL
  ["b"]=> int(1)
  ["c"]=> NULL
  ["d"]=> NULL
}

Comments

[lsl]

yes, however only the public vars will be displayed, private ones are returned only when the caller of get_object_vars is inside the class.

[Daniel Sorichetti]

Yep, as Lou said, <a href="nz.php.net/get_object_vars">get_object_vars</a> is the function you need.