I am running into a REALLY odd issue, and my best guess is that it’s a bug within PHP itself. When comparing (===) the value of a property on one object with the value of a property on another object, all the values of the properties on one of the objects are deleted.

• PHP 8.3.2-1+0~20240120.16+debian11~1.gbpb43448
• Laravel Framework 11.4.0
• 8.0.33-0ubuntu0.20.04.2

From the top

I’m editing a Post model, and running the update method on form submit

Routing

Route-model binding works as expected, and the correct controller method is called.

Route::patch('/posts/{id}/update', [PostController::class, 'update'])
        ->name('post.update');

PostController@update

public function update(UpdatePostRequest $request, Post $post) :RedirectResponse
{
    // A quick test here that will become relevant in a moment
    // dd(request()->user()->id === $post->user_id); // true

    // Results in 403
    if (request()->user()->cannot('edit', $post)) 
        abort(403);
    .
    .
    .
}

PostPolicy@edit

The PostPolicy class is called to check if the user can edit the post. The if statement is false despite the fact that the values being compared are identical.

/**
 * Determine if "$user" can perform "edit" on "$post"
 */
public function edit(User $user, Post $post) :bool
{
    if ($post->user_id === $user->id) {
        // Expecting this to return
        return $user->can('edit.own_posts');
    }
    else{
        // Always gets returned
        return $user->can('edit.posts');
    }
}

Note: I have verified all roles and permissions are properly assigned, although that isn’t really relevant to the issue I’m seeing.

The Problem

In the above function, checking the value of $user and $post BEFORE the if statement yields exactly the values that are expected … $post->user_id is strictly equal (===) to $user->id.

However, checking the value of $post from within the if statement block, reveals that all the properties on $post are empty. They all just disappeared.

Here are the results of various dd() (dump() and die()) calls.

public function edit(User $user, Post $post) :bool
{
    dd($user->id);                      // int 112
    dd($post->user_id);                 // int 112
    dd($user->id == $post->user_id);    // true
    dd($user->id === $post->user_id);   // true

    // What if accessing the property is what causes it to become null?
    // Let's dump it twice.
    dd($post->user_id, $post->user_id)  // int 112, int 112
    
    // After the comparison, all properties of 
    // $post are empty                              
    if ($post->user_id === $user->id) {

        return $user->can('edit.own_posts');
    }
    else{
        dd($user->id);                      // int 112
        dd($post->user_id);                 // null
        dd($user->id == $post->user_id);    // false
        dd($user->id === $post->user_id);   // false
                                            
        return $user->can('edit.posts');
    }
}

It Gets Weirder

This one is really throwing me off. If, and only if, I place a dd() inside the if block, it will execute as if the comparison resulted in true, but will not execute if I remove the dd().

public function edit(User $user, Post $post) :bool
{
    if ($post->user_id === $user->id) {
        
        // This line executes when present. Removing it will cause
        // the `else` block to execute.
        dd($user->id, $post->user_id);      // int 112, null
        
        return $user->can('edit.own_posts');
    }
    else{
        // This line only executes if you remove the dd() above
        return $user->can('edit.posts');
    }
}

No matter what I do, the second return statement is the only one I can get to. But just for fun, let’s try inverting the logic.

public function edit(User $user, Post $post) :bool
{
    if ($post->user_id !== $user->id) {
        // Always executes
        return $user->can('edit.posts');
    }
    else{
        return $user->can('edit.own_posts');
    }
}

For visual reference, here is the dd($post) result before the comparison call.

And here it is again called from within the if block.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this before, or have any ideas what could be causing it??