Magic method to run when object is referenced by a variable in an echo statement

Question

In PHP does such a magic method automatically run when a variable referencing an object is in an echo statement?

Answer 1

I am sorry, I had quite a difficulty understanding what you're asking. I believe you want the __toString() method:

The __toString() method allows a class to decide how it will react when it is treated like a string. For example, what echo $obj; will print. This method must return a string, as otherwise a fatal E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR level error is emitted.

Here's a quick example:

class A
{
    public function __toString()
    {
        return 'banana';
    }
}

$a = new A();
echo $a;

This will print out banana