Chano usage

Iteration

The Chano class can be looped over by instantiating it with either an array, stdClass or Traversable of arrays or objects.

For example if $items is:

array(
    array('title' => 'first title'),
    array('title' => 'second title'),
)

or:

(object)array(
    (object)array('title' => 'first title'),
    (object)array('title' => 'second title'),
)

or:

new ArrayObject(
    array(
        array('title' => 'first title'),
        array('title' => 'second title'),
    )
)

Then looping over $items is as simple as:

<?foreach(new Chano($items) as $item):?>
    <?=$item->title?>
<?endforeach?>

Accessing values

Both array and object notation are supported so the two lines below are identical:

<?=$item->title?>
<?=$item['title']?>

If you are working on nested datasets you can access its inner parts simply by doing:

<?=$item->key1->key2->key3?>
<?=$item['key1']['key2']['key3']?>

It works this way because Chano updates its current value, everytime a key is accessed on it. This goes on until its __toString() method is called.

Modifying values

You can modify the current value by calling any of the functions described on the functions page.

For example if value is "joel":

<?php
// Note this is not a typical Chano usecase, but merely an illustrative
// example. Normally, chaining is the way to go!
$item->value; // Current value is "joel".
$item->upper(); // Current value is "JOEL".
$item->lower(); // Current value is "joel" again.
echo $item; // "joel" is rendered and the current value is reset.
echo $item->other_value; // Meaning that you can start over with another
                         // value from the current array or object.

Most of the Chano functions can be chained, so the following is perfectly legal:

<?=$item->monkeys->bosses->join(" -- ")->title()->ljust(20)?>

An important thing to note is that if a function is being called when the current value is an array or an stdClass, Chano will iterate over said array or stdClass and non-recursively modify all scalar values in it. So the following would be identical to the example above:

<?=$item->monkeys->bosses->title()->ljust(20)->join(" -- ")?>

Datatypes

The return from all chainable Chano functions is of course the Chano instance itself, and not the actual value of the current item. Only when the Chano instance is being cast to a string - by doing <?=$item->title?> or echo $item->title; will a stringification of the current item be rendered.

If you want to access the actual value you can use the Chano::v property, and if you want the stringified value you can use the Chano::__toString() method or its shortcut, the Chano::_ magic property.

For example if number_of_monkeys is an integer:

<?php
<?=get_class($item->number_of_monkeys)?>
<?=gettype($item->number_of_monkeys->v)?>
<?=gettype($item->number_of_monkeys->__toString())?>
<?=gettype($item->number_of_monkeys->_)?>

The output would be:

Chano
Integer
String
String

This also means that you can’t access keys named "_" and "v" in your items as the magic values will take precedence.

Standalone values

Should you wish to use a Chano function on a single value (string, int, array, etc.) this is possible by using the Chano::with() shortcut.

For example:

<?=$item->value->center(14)?>

Used inside a foreach loop is identical to:

<?=Chano::with($value)->center(14))?>

This works on functions that works on the base Chano instance too. Simply don’t pass any arguments to the set() function.

For example:

<?=$item->now("%B %e, %Y, %R %P")?>

Used inside a foreach loop is identical to:

<?=Chano::with()->now("%B %e, %Y, %R %P"))?>

Calling methods on values

Function calls for functions not found on the Chano class is passed on to the current item and the current value is updated with the return from that function call.

For example if $items is a collection of Propel Orm Model instances, which each has getter functions:

<?foreach(new Chano($items) as $item):?>
    <?=$item->getTitle->title()?>
    <?=$item->getBody->safe()?>
<?endforeach?>

Encoding

Chano defaults utf-8 but that can be changed by overwriting the Chano::$encoding property.

For example:

<?php
Chano::$encoding = 'latin1';

i18n

Chano is locale and timezone aware.

Supporting other input types

By default Chano only accepts arrays, stdClasses or Traversables as input. If you want support for others check out the iterators.php file for an example of how it is done.