Attempt to assign property “%s” on null

Description

null is not an object, and it can’t be used as such. Until PHP 8.0, the engine would automatically create a stdClass object, and replace the null value with it. This is not the case anymore.

Example

<?php

$a = null;

$a->b = 1;

?>

Literal Examples

• Attempt to assign property “b” on null

Alternatives

• Instantiate any object and replace null with it.
• Explicitly instantiate a stdClass object and replace null with it.
• Remove the property usage.
• Use another variable to use this property.

In previous PHP versions, this error message used to be :ref:creating-default-object-from-empty-value.