Mastering PHP 7

Using __set_state()

The __set_state() magic method is triggered (not really) for classes exported by the var_export() function. The method accepts a single array type parameter and returns an object, as per the following synopsis:

static object __set_state(array $properties)

The var_export() function outputs or returns a parsable string representation of a given variable. It is somewhat similar to the var_dump() function, except that the returned representation is a valid PHP

<?phpclass User{  public $name = 'John';  public $age = 34;  private $salary = 4200.00;  protected $identifier = 'ABC';}$user = new User();var_export($user); // outputs string "User::__set_state..."var_export($user, true); // returns string "User::__set_state..."

This ...