Description:
------------
I think it'd be a useful tool to add a __cast($to) magic function to the Classes and Objects category of PHP syntax. What said function would do is allow the programmer to specify the return values of casting a user-land object into one of the built-in data types. I.E. using (int) MyObject would invoke the __cast() method passing it the 'int' type. In such a case, the programmer could then specify what is returned when cast to, per se, int's.

<?php
class MyObject {
    public $myValue = null;
    public function __construct($value) {
        $this->myValue = $value;
    }
    
    public function __cast($to = 'string') {
        switch ($to) {
            case 'string':
                return 'The value of myValue is: ' . (string) $this->myValue;
            case 'int':
                return strlen($this->myValue);
        }
    }
}

$myObject = new MyObject('I am a string');
print (int) $myObject; // Output: 13
?>