Learn PHP Tutorial 21 casting and settype function

This video is made for learning about casting and settype function in PHP.

settype — Set the type of a variable

Description ¶

bool settype ( mixed &$var , string $type )
Set the type of variable var to type.

Parameters ¶

var
The variable being converted.

type
Possibles values of type are:

"boolean" (or, since PHP 4.2.0, "bool")
"integer" (or, since PHP 4.2.0, "int")
"float" (only possible since PHP 4.2.0, for older versions use the deprecated variant "double")
"string"
"array"
"object"
"null" (since PHP 4.2.0)
Return Values ¶

Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.

Type Juggling ¶

PHP does not require (or support) explicit type definition in variable declaration; a variable's type is determined by the context in which the variable is used. That is to say, if a string value is assigned to variable $var, $var becomes a string. If an integer value is then assigned to $var, it becomes an integer.

An example of PHP's automatic type conversion is the addition operator '+'. If either operand is a float, then both operands are evaluated as floats, and the result will be a float. Otherwise, the operands will be interpreted as integers, and the result will also be an integer. Note that this does not change the types of the operands themselves; the only change is in how the operands are evaluated and what the type of the expression itself is.