Casting and type juggling

Originally published on zero2php.dev — part of the Zero to PHP course. View this lesson on the original site.

Explicit casts

You can convert with casts: (int), (float), (string), (bool), (array), (object).

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

$x = (int) '42';
var_dump($x);

Equality and juggling

PHP also juggles types in some operations—== can surprise you. When you care about both value and type, prefer === and !==.

declare(strict_types=1); tightens type checks for function arguments/returns once you define functions in Chapter 2—keep it in new files now as a good habit.

Exercise

echo the integer 42 by casting: use (int) on the string '42'.

From Zero to PHP — PHP foundations: environment, syntax, and values