How can the __toString() method be used in PHP to convert an object to a string for comparison purposes?

When comparing objects in PHP, you may encounter issues due to the comparison being done based on memory addresses rather than the actual content of the objects. To solve this issue, you can implement the __toString() method in your class, which will allow you to define how the object should be converted to a string for comparison purposes. This method should return a string representation of the object's data that can be used for comparison. 

class MyClass {
    private $data;

    public function __construct($data) {
        $this->data = $data;
    }

    public function __toString() {
        return $this->data;
    }
}

$obj1 = new MyClass("Hello");
$obj2 = new MyClass("Hello");

if ($obj1->__toString() === $obj2->__toString()) {
    echo "Objects are equal.";
} else {
    echo "Objects are not equal.";
}

Keywords

__toString() method object string comparison

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