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CLR vs. PHP types#

This article provides information on how the runtime treats .NET types. As a result, with respect to this specification, it is possible to pass values between .NET (assuming C#) and PHP code implicitly, without the need of marshalling or additional conversions.

Type System#

The following table shows compatible .NET types and the corresponding PHP type:

.NET PHP PHP Features
PhpValue mixed
bool boolean
int, uint, long integer
double, float double
string, PhpString, byte[] string
object object ->
null NULL
PhpResource resource is_resource
PhpNumber integer|double
PhpArray, ArrayAccess, IList array, ArrayAccess []
Iterator, IteratorAggregate, IEnumerable iterable foreach, is_iterable
delegate, IPhpCallable, string, PhpArray(2) callable call_user_func, is_callable, etc.
Nullable<T> value|NULL isset, unset

System.Nullable<T>#

Values can be read from and assigned to the Nullable<T> type. Any value of type Nullable<T> is treated as its contained value or NULL. An automatic conversion is performed. The operator isset is using the Nullable.HasValue property implicitly.

class Test {
    public int? Number;           // nullable field
    public double? Foo() { ... }; // return nullable from method
    public void Bar(bool? b) { }  // gets nullable parameter
}
<?php
$t = new Test;
$t->Number = 123; // assigns `new Nullable<int>(123)`
$t->Number = null; // assigns `default(Nullable<int>)`
isset( $t->Number ); // gets Number.HasValue
print_r( $t->Foo() ); // gets NULL or double
$t->Bar( NULL ); // passes `default(Nullable<bool>)` to the method
$t->Bar( true ); // passes `new Nullable<bool>(true)` to the method

System.Delegate#

PHP's concept of callables works with string pointing to a function name, array of two dimensions referring to a class and its method, classes with the __invoke method or instances of the Closure class. Variables of these types, denoted as callable, can be used for indirect calls as depicted in the sample below:

<?php
assert( is_callable($delegate) );
print_r( $delegate($arg1, $arg2) ); // $delegate is `callable`

PeachPie extends the set of callable types with any CLR delegate or objects implementing the IPhpCallable interface (Peachpie.Runtime.dll).

Sample C# code that passes a delegate to a PHP global variable:

mycontext.Globals["delegate"] = new Func<string, bool>( str => str.IsNormalized() );

System.Collections.IEnumerable#

The sample PHP code below is able to consume a variety of CLR objects in addition to PHP's array and Traversable.

<?php
foreach ($enumerable as $key => $value) { }

$enumerable may implement the following CLR interfaces:

  • IPhpEnumerable (Peachpie.Runtime.dll) is the extended version of IEnumerable. Objects implementing this interface are capable of being enumerated in PHP's foreach.
  • IDictionary; objects implementing this interface.
  • IEnumerable<(Key, Value)>; objects implementing IEnumerable<> of ValueTuple with two items.
  • IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<Key, Value>>; objects implementing IEnumerable<> of KeyValuePair<,>.
  • IEnumerable in general works with foreach as well. $key is auto-incremented starting with 0, $value is the current value of the enumerator.

As a result, standard .NET classes such as .NET arrays, ArrayList, List<>, Dictionary<,> or enumerators created using C# yield are transparently supported by PHP's foreach construct.

foreach by reference#

<?php
foreach ($enumerable as $key => &$value) { $value = 0; }
In order to support an iteration by reference, the enumerable object must return the value of type PhpAlias from the enumerator. Otherwise an exception of type InvalidOperationException is thrown.

System.Collections.IList#

PHP allows the accessing of an array and objects implementing ArrayAccess with square brackets [] as shown in the example below:

<?php
echo $list[10];

PeachPie provides the feature for System.Collections.IList, which allows consuming .NET arrays, Lists and other classes in PHP.

C# Indexers#

PHP array operator [] can be used on objects implementing C# indexers.

The following example defines a C# indexer with sample get and set accessors.

using System;

class SampleIndexer
{
   string[] arr = new string[100];

   // Define the indexer to allow to use [] operator.
   public string this[int i]
   {
      get { return arr[i]; }
      set { arr[i] = value; }
   }
}

The following PHP code makes use of the C# indexer implicitly.

<?php
$sample = new \SampleIndexer;
$sample[0] = "Hello";
echo $sample[0]; // prints "Hello"

The indexer implementation #c# this[] is a syntactic sugar that results in compiler generated special get_Item and set_Item methods. PeachPie translates the array operator into the call to the corresponding get_Item or set_Itemmethod.