How to check an elements elementType

Question

In Craft 3, I've got a service function that I'm passing either an 'entry' or 'category' element into.

I'd like to know how to differentiate between the possible element types; This kinda of works:

public function getElementType($element) {
  if ( isset($element->group) ) {
    return = 'category';
  } else if (isset($element->section)) {
    return = 'entry';        
  }
}

However I can't help but feel this is unreliable and hacky. Is there a better way to check an elements elementType?

Jay · Accepted Answer

You can also use the PHP function is_a() in addition to the PHP function get_class().

This is a bit different as it also matches classes which have the class as one of its parents, e.g. an element class that extends craftelementsUser.

Example:

if (is_a($element, 'craftelementsUser')) {
    // Do stuff
}

or

if (is_a($element, craftelementsUser::class)) {
    // Do stuff
}

Mark Notton · Answer

I just discovered getElementTypeById()

This pretty much does the trick:

public function getElementType($element) {

$elementType = Craft::$app->getElements()->getElementTypeById($element->id);

if (strpos($elementType, 'Category') !== false) {
      return 'category';
    } else if (strpos($elementType, 'Entry') !== false) {
      return 'entry';
    }

}

carlcs · Answer

There’s no dedicated method on elements, but you can use get_class().

switch (get_class($element)) {
    case Entry::class:
        // it’s an entry
        break;

case Category::class:
        // it’s a category
        break;
}

James Smith · Answer

Having arrived here from a Google search while trying to do this in Twig rather than PHP, I thought it might help someone in future to leave an answer, even though it doesn't address your question directly:
{{ item is instance of('craftelementsEntry') ? 'This element is an entry!' }}
{{ item is instance of('craftelementsAsset') ? 'This is an asset!' }}
{{ item is instance of('craftelementsCategory') ? 'This is a category!' }}
{{ item is instance of('craftelementsUser') ? 'This is a user!' }}

I find this especially useful in, for example, internal keyword search results listings templates, where the elements that were found might be of different types and you want to take different actions depending on the types.

Nikolay Bronskiy · Answer

Example: do nothing if element is not Entry
if (!$event->element instanceof craftelementsEntry) { return; }

How to check an elements elementType

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