PHP one instance returns an object with #5

Question

What i have learned about objects in php is that the hash with a number (#n) points to the instantiation times for example :

if we have something like this object(Index)#5 (1) means that we have 5 instances of the Index object.

However in my case i'm working on a custom PHP MVC i have only instantiated the class once (i'm sure only once. a model class directly within the controller ) but i'm getting an object like so

object(Timino\App\Models\Index)#5 (1)

so why is this happening ?

do namespaces affect this ! ?

does this have an affection to the performance ?!

Answer 1

Namespaces should not affect this. For performance issues, the number of objects during script runtime will only have an impact, if the script is getting close or over the max memory limit. FYI, here are some considerations about performance.

A simple example to show/explain the "object counter":

class TestClass {
    public $number = 2;
}

class ClassInner {
    protected $number = 5;
    protected $innerObject;

    public function __construct() {
        $this->innerObject = new \stdClass();
    }
}


$testInstance = new TestClass();
$classInner = new ClassInner();

$classInner2 = new ClassInner();
$testInstance2 = new TestClass();

$classInner3 = $classInner2;

echo '<pre>'; 
var_dump($testInstance);
var_dump($classInner);

var_dump($classInner2);
var_dump($testInstance2);
var_dump($classInner3);

echo '</pre>';

Should result in this output. Pleas have a look at the order of instances and count:

object(TestClass)#1 (1) {
  ["number"]=>
  int(2)
}
object(ClassInner)#2 (2) {
  ["number":protected]=>
  int(5)
  ["innerObject":protected]=>
  object(stdClass)#3 (0) {
  }
}
object(ClassInner)#4 (2) {
  ["number":protected]=>
  int(5)
  ["innerObject":protected]=>
  object(stdClass)#5 (0) {
  }
}
object(TestClass)#6 (1) {
  ["number"]=>
  int(2)
}
object(ClassInner)#4 (2) {
  ["number":protected]=>
  int(5)
  ["innerObject":protected]=>
  object(stdClass)#5 (0) {
  }
}