Bizarre Problem....object is empty unless I print_r or vardump first

[Vcize]

I have an object that looks like this:

[createdDatetime:Legacy\CdyneAddressReturns:private] => DateTime Object
                (
                    [date] => -0001-11-30 00:00:00
                    [timezone_type] => 3
                    [timezone] => America/Chicago
                )

At least, that's what it looks like it I print_r the object. However, if I don't run a print_r or a var_dump on the object first, it appears to be empty, or at least I can't access it.

For instance, when I run

PHP Code:

foreach($currentRecord as $key => $value)
        {
            $dateVar = $value->getCreatedDatetime();
            $createdDate = $dateVar->date;
            
            echo "createDate is " . $createdDate . "<br/>";
} 


Then $createDate is empty, and I get an undefined property error (Notice: Undefined property: DateTime::$date).

However, if I simply stick a print_r at the top..

PHP Code:

foreach($currentRecord as $key => $value)
        {
            $value->getCreatedDatetime();

            $dateVar = $value->getCreatedDatetime();
            $createdDate = $dateVar->date;
            
            echo "createDate is " . $createdDate . "<br/>";
} 


Then everything appears to work fine, and I get...

createDate is -0001-11-30 00:00:00

I've never run into a problem like this before where my program behaved differently based simply on whether or not I printed something out in the middle of it. Any idea what's going on here?

[Fou-Lu]

You should never receive an Undefined Property when accessing DateTime::$date. That would be a fatal error since its not within a valid scope. The only thing I can think of that would allow this is if you are defining an alternate DateTime class for it to work with within the scope of your current namespace.
Since I cannot replicate this behaviour, and receive the correct fatal notification of attempting to access a private member, can you post the entire code in use so this can be tested as well as the version of PHP you are using.