Yet another approach.
The following is now possible thanks to the recent PHP 7 version.
$theStdClass = (object) [
'a' => 'Alpha',
'b' => 'Bravo',
'c' => 'Charlie',
'd' => 'Delta',
];
$foo = new class($theStdClass) {
public function __construct($data) {
if (!is_array($data)) {
$data = (array) $data;
}
foreach ($data as $prop => $value) {
$this->{$prop} = $value;
}
}
public function word4Letter($letter) {
return $this->{$letter};
}
};
print $foo->word4Letter('a') . PHP_EOL; // Alpha
print $foo->word4Letter('b') . PHP_EOL; // Bravo
print $foo->word4Letter('c') . PHP_EOL; // Charlie
print $foo->word4Letter('d') . PHP_EOL; // Delta
print $foo->word4Letter('e') . PHP_EOL; // PHP Notice: Undefined property
In this example, $foo is being initialized as an anonymous class that takes one array or stdClass as only parameter for the constructor.
Eventually, we loop through the each items contained in the passed object and dynamically assign then to an object's property.
To make this approch event more generic, you can write an interface or a Trait that you will implement in any class where you want to be able to cast an stdClass.