Cast an associative array or object in PHP to an instance of a class (uses a Laravel helper method)

cast.php

<?php

function cast($object, $class) {
    if( !is_object($object) ) 
        throw new InvalidArgumentException('$object must be an object.');
    if( !is_string($class) )
        throw new InvalidArgumentException('$class must be a string.');
    if( !class_exists($class) )
        throw new InvalidArgumentException(sprintf('Unknown class: %s.', $class));
    $ret = app($class);
    foreach (get_object_vars($object) as $key => $value) {
        $ret[$key] = $value;
    }
    return $ret;
}

?>