grifart/equalable-utils

Provides a universal equals() function.

v1.0.3 2019-05-30 17:52 UTC

This package is auto-updated.

Last update: 2024-12-17 07:44:11 UTC


README

Are objects equal or not? PHP defines only instance equality using === operator. Then there is comparision by value == which compares by object values, but user-land code cannot modify how they are compared.

This is why universal equals() method exists in Java. PHP is missing anything like that.

This is why I have implemented global equals() function provides logic equality of objects. Which objects are equal and which not can be modified by several things - see bellow.

Installation

composer require grifart/equalable-utils

Implementing logical equality

There are several ways of implementhing logic equality.

\Ds\Hashable (from PHP DS extension)

Hashable is PHP clone of Java equals() and hashCode() method. If you like to use implementing objects in collection this would make the most sense.

\Comparable interface proposal

This library supports \Comparable interface and tries to compare objects.

Just implement equals($other), is($other) or isEqualTo($other) methods

This methods must behave the same as Java equals() method.