is_a

Description

This function returns TRUE if the object is of this class or has this class as one of its parents, FALSE otherwise.

Example 1. is_a() example <?php // define a class class WidgetFactory {   var $oink = 'moo'; } // create a new object $WF = new WidgetFactory(); if (is_a($WF, 'WidgetFactory')) {   echo "yes, \$WF is still a WidgetFactory\n"; } ?>

The is_a() function is deprecated as of PHP 5 in favor of the instanceof type operator. In the above example we could use the following in PHP 5:

Example 2. Using the instanceof operator in PHP 5 <?php if ($WF instanceof WidgetFactory) {     echo 'Yes, $WF is a WidgetFactory'; } ?>

See also get_class(), get_parent_class(), and is_subclass_of().