Matthew Hodge

Full Stack Developer

February 7, 2025 - Understanding PHP 8's Match Expression

PHP 8 introduced a new feature called match expression, which is similar to the switch statement but with some key differences and improvements. This post will explain the differences between switch and match and provide examples to illustrate their usage.

For more details, you can refer to the official PHP documentation.

Differences between `switch` and `match`

Return Value: The match expression returns a value, whereas the switch statement does not.
Strict Comparison: match uses strict comparison (===), while switch uses loose comparison (==).
No Fall-through: match does not allow fall-through, which means each case must be unique and there is no need for break statements.
Expression-based: match is an expression and can be used in assignments, while switch is a statement.

Example 1: Basic Usage

Using `switch`

$input = 2;
$result = '';

switch ($input) {
    case 1:
        $result = 'One';
        break;
    case 2:
        $result = 'Two';
        break;
    case 3:
        $result = 'Three';
        break;
    default:
        $result = 'Unknown';
        break;
}

echo $result; // Outputs: Two

Using `match`

$input = 2;

$result = match ($input) {
    1 => 'One',
    2 => 'Two',
    3 => 'Three',
    default => 'Unknown',
};

echo $result; // Outputs: Two

Example 2: Type Safety

Using `switch`

<?php
$input = '2';
$result = '';

switch ($input) {
    case 1:
        $result = 'One';
        break;
    case 2:
        $result = 'Two';
        break;
    case 3:
        $result = 'Three';
        break;
    default:
        $result = 'Unknown';
        break;
}

echo $result; // Outputs: Two (loose comparison)

Using `match`

<?php
$input = '2';

$result = match ($input) {
    1 => 'One',
    2 => 'Two',
    3 => 'Three',
    default => 'Unknown',
};

echo $result; // Outputs: Unknown (strict comparison)

As you can see, the match expression provides a more concise and safer way to handle conditional logic compared to the switch statement. It ensures strict type comparisons and eliminates the risk of fall-through errors.

By understanding and utilizing the match expression, you can write cleaner and more predictable code in PHP 8 and beyond.

November 22, 2022 - WSDL to PHP generator

PHP

I was recently tasked with implementing a SOAP service in order to interact with an accounting system and an ecommerce store, to update products based on the data returned from the service i.e pricing and stock updates scheduled to run on a schedule.

I use a great WsdlToPhp/PackageGenerator on GitHub to generate PHP classes from a WSDL, I thought to myself why not write about it in the hopes of it being of use for other developers.

Lets take a look at this example calculator wsdl which will allow us to use the functions thereof to perform some calculations. I'm sure your WSDL will be more complex and have a better use case, but this is just to get you started

directory structure

- calculator.php
- index.php
- composer.json

sample soap service

http://www.dneonline.com/calculator.asmx?wsdl

composer.json

{
    "name": "mhodge/playground",
    "autoload": {
        "psr-4": {
            "Calculator\\": "Calculator/src/Calculator"
        }
    },
    "require-dev": {
        "wsdltophp/packagegenerator": "^4.1"
    }
}

calculator.php

<?php
require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

use WsdlToPhp\PackageGenerator\ConfigurationReader\GeneratorOptions;
use WsdlToPhp\PackageGenerator\Generator\Generator;

$options = GeneratorOptions::instance();
$options
    ->setOrigin('http://www.dneonline.com/calculator.asmx?wsdl')
    ->setDestination('./Calculator')
    ->setComposerName('calculator')
    ->setNamespace('Calculator');

    // Generator instantiation
$generator = new Generator($options);

// Package generation
$generator->generatePackage();

index.php

<?php
require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

$options = [
    WsdlToPhp\PackageBase\AbstractSoapClientBase::WSDL_URL => 'http://www.dneonline.com/calculator.asmx?wsdl',
    WsdlToPhp\PackageBase\AbstractSoapClientBase::WSDL_CLASSMAP => \Calculator\ClassMap::get(),
];
/**
 * Samples for Add ServiceType
 */
$add = new \Calculator\ServiceType\Add($options);
/**
 * Sample call for Add operation/method
 */
if ($add->Add(new \Calculator\StructType\Add(668,669)) !== false) {
    print_r($add->getResult());
    print_r("<br />");
} else {
    print_r($add->getLastError());
    print_r("<br />");
}

Why 668 + 669 ? well thats just 1337!

There are many other options you can set and use for your project other than the ones I used above, I highly recommend going through all of them to get familiar so you can apply to your use case.

One of the options I find really usefull is overriding the xsd_types of the wsdl you are generating this Weather WSDL for example uses multiple XSD types string, decimal, datetime etc. It's sometimes usefull to extend the default xsd_types.yml and specify the type you want returned for your WSDL.

i.e you could update the index.php and set the setXsdTypesPath directive

calculator.php - updated

require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

use WsdlToPhp\PackageGenerator\ConfigurationReader\GeneratorOptions;
use WsdlToPhp\PackageGenerator\Generator\Generator;

$options = GeneratorOptions::instance();
$options
    ->setOrigin('http://www.dneonline.com/calculator.asmx?wsdl')
    ->setDestination('./Calculator')
    ->setComposerName('calculator')
    ->setNamespace('Calculator')
    ->setXsdTypesPath('xsd_types.yml');

    // Generator instantiation
$generator = new Generator($options);

// Package generation
$generator->generatePackage();

xsd_types.yml

# List of XSD types that can be defined as a type hint parameter.

xsd_types:
    anonymous: "string"
    anySimpleType: "string"
    anyType: "string"
    anyURI: "string"
    base64Binary: "string"
    bool: "bool"
    boolean: "bool"
    byte: "string"
    date: "string"
    dateTime: "string"
    decimal: "float"
    double: "float"
    DayOfWeekType: "string"
    DOMDocument: "string"
    duration: "string"
    ENTITY: "string"
    ENTITIES: "string"
    float: "float"
    gDay: "string"
    gMonth: "string"
    gMonthDay: "int"
    gYear: "string"
    gYearMonth: "int"
    hexBinary: "string"
    int: "int"
    integer: "int"
    ID: "string"
    IDREF: "string"
    IDREFS: "string"
    language: "string"
    long: "int"
    Name: "string"
    negativeInteger: "int"
    nonNegativeInteger: "int"
    nonPositiveInteger: "int"
    normalizedString: "string"
    NCName: "string"
    NMTOKEN: "string"
    NMTOKENS: "string"
    NOTATION: "string"
    positiveInteger: "int"
    QName: "string"
    short: "int"
    string: "string"
    timestamp: "int"
    timeStamp: "int"
    time: "string"
    token: "string"
    unsignedByte: "string"
    unsignedInt: "int"
    unsignedLong: "int"
    unsignedShort: "int"
    UID: "string"
    UNKNOWN: "string"

June 15, 2021 - How to debug in PHP

PHP

Lets say you have the following class, how do you output the contents of car variable?

class Car{
    public $make;

    public function __construct($make = null){
        $this->make = $make;
    }
}
$car = new Car('VW');

In order to debug the variable and output it to the screen you can use the following:

print_r($car)

You could also store the output into a variable which could be written later rather than output the contents to screen for example you would write it to a file:

$results = print_r($car, true); // $results now contains output from print_r

February 7, 2025 - Understanding PHP 8's Match Expression

Differences between switch and match

Example 1: Basic Usage

Using switch

Using match

Example 2: Type Safety

Using switch

Using match

November 22, 2022 - WSDL to PHP generator

June 15, 2021 - How to debug in PHP

Differences between `switch` and `match`

Using `switch`

Using `match`

Using `switch`

Using `match`