Get a PHPActiveRecord result as simple array, not array of objects

Question

I would like to have a simple a method, that can give back PHP Activerecord results as simple/associative arrays, not an array of ActiveRecord Objects.

In Ruby I believe this is done perhaps with .map() method. (I am not a Ruby guy...)

What I want is a simple method call, like toArray() in Zend_DB_Table, not a foreach, or something like that, but I can't seem to find it in their docs.

In PHP ActiveRecord getting a result is really easy:

$settings = SystemSettings::all();

But it gives back something like this:

[0] => SystemSettings Object
    (
        [errors] => 
        [attributes:ActiveRecord\Model:private] => Array
            (
                [param] => author
                [value] => Hawle
            )

        [__dirty:ActiveRecord\Model:private] => Array
            (
            )

        [__readonly:ActiveRecord\Model:private] => 
        [__relationships:ActiveRecord\Model:private] => Array
            (
            )

        [__new_record:ActiveRecord\Model:private] => 
    )

[1] => SystemSettings Object
    (
        [errors] => 
        [attributes:ActiveRecord\Model:private] => Array
            (
                [param] => base_url
                [value] => example.com
            )

        [__dirty:ActiveRecord\Model:private] => Array
            (
            )

        [__readonly:ActiveRecord\Model:private] => 
        [__relationships:ActiveRecord\Model:private] => Array
            (
            )

        [__new_record:ActiveRecord\Model:private] => 
    )

While this is really great in many cases, here, I would just like to have a simple array, like this:

Array
    (
        [author] => Hawle
        [base_url] => example.com
    )

Answer 1

I had a similar issue hopefully this can help someone else who stumbles on it. Obviously, this is specific to phpactiverecord.org.

In /lib/Model.php I added the following function:

public function to_array(array $options=array())
{
    return $this->serialize('array', $options);
}

In /lib/Serialization.php I added the following class

class arraySerializer extends Serialization
{
    public static $include_root = false;

    public function to_s()
    {
        return self::$include_root ? array(strtolower(get_class($this->model)) => $this->to_a()) : $this->to_a();
    }


}

I can then call ->to_array() and get an array back.

Hope this helps!