stripe php looping through metadata object issue

Question

I am having problems getting the php 'foreach' to work with a Stripe object.

i can run the following command which gives me expected results:

error_log(gettype($event->data->object->metadata));   // displays 'Stripe\StripeObject Object'

then i can run this:

error_log(print_r($event->data->object->metadata, true));

which displays:

(
    [last_name] => XXXXX
    [gateway_id] => stripe_cc
    [user_agent] => Mozilla/5.0  . . . . . . .Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
    [webhook_id] => we_XZXXXXd0n
    [first_name] => XXX
    .......................
    [ip_address] => 123.123.123.123
)

and i can even extract values using something like this:

$event->data->object->metadata['ip_address']  // returns ip address
$event->data->object->metadata['first_name'] // returns first name

however, for whatever reason, i cannot seem to get the following foreach statements to produce anything:

foreach ($event->data->object->metadata as $key => $value )    {
    error_log( $key  . ' => ' $value );
}
foreach ( (array) $event->data->object->metadata as $key => $value )    {
    error_log( $key  . ' => ' $value );
}
foreach ( get_object_vars($event->data->object['metadata']) as $key => $value) {
    error_log( $key  . ' => ' $value );
}

is there something glaringly obvious i am missing?

Assume you're talking about github.com/stripe/stripe-php/blob/master/lib/StripeObject.php ? — ADyson
– ADyson, Commented Nov 6, 2025 at 16:03
Stripe objects implement the ArrayAccess protocol, which allows indexing them. But they're not really arrays, so you can't use all array operations like foreach. — Barmar
– Barmar, Commented Nov 6, 2025 at 16:07
@Barmar you can foreach over the public properties of a PHP class in general (3v4l.org/fKXB1) so it's a bit unclear (to me at least) why the properties of this particular StripeObect class would be any different? What have I missed? — ADyson
– ADyson, Commented Nov 6, 2025 at 16:09
@ADyson ISTR that they're private or protected properties. So it would need to implement the Iterable interface. — Barmar
– Barmar, Commented Nov 6, 2025 at 16:11
@ADyson OK. I knew var_dump() distinguishes them, I couldn't remember if print_r() does (I hadn't looked at your demo). — Barmar
– Barmar, Commented Nov 6, 2025 at 16:14

koopajah · Accepted Answer · 2025-11-06 16:27:07Z

3

The comments are correct and the reason it doesn't work is that metadata is a StripeObject defined here which implements Countable so you can count the keys but it doesn't implement IteratorAggregate at the moment. What you need to do is convert this to an array first which then works

$customer = $stripe->customers->create([
  'metadata' => [
    'key1' => 'value1',
    'key2' => 'value2',
  ],
]);

foreach($customer->metadata->toArray() as $key => $value) {
  error_log( $key  . ' => ' $value );
}

edited Nov 6, 2025 at 16:27

answered Nov 6, 2025 at 16:20

koopajah

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1 Comment

edwardsmarkf Nov 7, 2025 at 4:55

thank you. very similar question/answer here: stackoverflow.com/questions/63144905/…

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