May, 2025 - My Awesome Moments

PHP Constant expression contains invalid operations new stdClass Error

I got this PHP error of “Constant expression contains invalid operations”.

This is due to a function variable default value of new stdClass()

public function add(string $name, object $contents = new stdClass()){
/*
function definition
*/
}

public function add(string $name, object $contents = new stdClass()){

function definition

}

This happens on PHP version 8.0.30 on my hosting server.

This errors doesn’t appear on my development laptop which is version 8.2.4.

I put “null” instead of “new stdClass()” and then set it to new stdClass if the variable is null.

public function add(string $name, object $contents = null){
if($contents == null):
   $contents = new stdClass();
endif;
/* function definition */ }

public function add(string $name, object $contents = null){

if($contents == null):

$contents = new stdClass();

endif;

/* function definition */ }