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Last updated: Thu, 19 May 2005

is_a

(PHP 4 >= 4.2.0, PHP 5)

is_a --  Returns TRUE if the object is of this class or has this class as one of its parents

Description

bool is_a ( object object, string class_name )

This function returns TRUE if the object is of this class or has this class as one of its parents, FALSE otherwise.

Example 1. is_a() example

<?php
// define a class
class WidgetFactory
{
  var
$oink = 'moo';
}

// create a new object
$WF = new WidgetFactory();

if (
is_a($WF, 'WidgetFactory')) {
  echo
"yes, \$WF is still a WidgetFactory\n";
}
?>

The is_a() function is deprecated as of PHP 5 in favor of the instanceof type operator. In the above example we could use the following in PHP 5:

Example 2. Using the instanceof operator in PHP 5

<?php
if ($WF instanceof WidgetFactory) {
   echo
'Yes, $WF is a WidgetFactory';
}
?>

See also get_class(), get_parent_class(), and is_subclass_of().



User Contributed Notes
is_a
aidan at php dot net
20-May-2004 09:11
This functionality is now implemented in the PEAR package PHP_Compat.

More information about using this function without upgrading your version of PHP can be found on the below link:

http://pear.php.net/package/PHP_Compat

<interface_existsis_subclass_of>
 Last updated: Thu, 19 May 2005
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Last updated: Thu May 19 17:35:34 2005 CDT