Uneven division of an integer variable by another integer variable will result in a float by automatic conversion -- you do not have to cast the variables to floats in order to avoid integer truncation (as you would in C, for example):
$dividend = 2;
$divisor = 3;
$quotient = $dividend/$divisor;
print $quotient; // 0.66666666666667
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 multiplication 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.
<?php
$foo = "1"; // $foo is string (ASCII 49)
$foo *= 2; // $foo is now an integer (2)
$foo = $foo * 1.3; // $foo is now a float (2.6)
$foo = 5 * "10 Little Piggies"; // $foo is integer (50)
$foo = 5 * "10 Small Pigs"; // $foo is integer (50)
?>
If the last two examples above seem odd, see String conversion to numbers.
To force a variable to be evaluated as a certain type, see the section on Type casting. To change the type of a variable, see the settype() function.
To test any of the examples in this section, use the var_dump() function.
Note:
The behaviour of an automatic conversion to array is currently undefined.
Also, because PHP supports indexing into strings via offsets using the same syntax as array indexing, the following example holds true for all PHP versions:
<?php
$a = 'car'; // $a is a string
$a[0] = 'b'; // $a is still a string
echo $a; // bar
?>See the section titled String access by character for more information.
Type Casting
Type casting in PHP works much as it does in C: the name of the desired type is written in parentheses before the variable which is to be cast.
<?php
$foo = 10; // $foo is an integer
$bar = (boolean) $foo; // $bar is a boolean
?>
The casts allowed are:
- (int), (integer) - cast to integer
- (bool), (boolean) - cast to boolean
- (float), (double), (real) - cast to float
- (string) - cast to string
- (array) - cast to array
- (object) - cast to object
- (unset) - cast to NULL (PHP 5)
(binary) casting and b prefix forward support was added in PHP 5.2.1
Note that tabs and spaces are allowed inside the parentheses, so the following are functionally equivalent:
<?php
$foo = (int) $bar;
$foo = ( int ) $bar;
?>
Casting literal strings and variables to binary strings:
<?php
$binary = (binary) $string;
$binary = b"binary string";
?>
Note:
Instead of casting a variable to a string, it is also possible to enclose the variable in double quotes.
<?php
$foo = 10; // $foo is an integer
$str = "$foo"; // $str is a string
$fst = (string) $foo; // $fst is also a string
// This prints out that "they are the same"
if ($fst === $str) {
echo "they are the same";
}
?>
It may not be obvious exactly what will happen when casting between certain types. For more information, see these sections:
add a note
User Contributed Notes 7 notes
Raja ¶
19 years ago
fardelian ¶
11 years ago
Casting objects to arrays is a pain. Example:
<?php
class MyClass {
private $priv = 'priv_value';
protected $prot = 'prot_value';
public $pub = 'pub_value';
public $MyClasspriv = 'second_pub_value';
}
$test = new MyClass();
echo '<pre>';
print_r((array) $test);
/*
Array
(
[MyClasspriv] => priv_value
[*prot] => prot_value
[pub] => pub_value
[MyClasspriv] => second_pub_value
)
*/
?>
Yes, that looks like an array with two keys with the same name and it looks like the protected field was prepended with an asterisk. But that's not true:
<?php
foreach ((array) $test as $key => $value) {
$len = strlen($key);
echo "{$key} ({$len}) => {$value}<br />";
for ($i = 0; $i < $len; ++$i) {
echo ord($key[$i]) . ' ';
}
echo '<hr />';
}
/*
MyClasspriv (13) => priv_value
0 77 121 67 108 97 115 115 0 112 114 105 118
*prot (7) => prot_value
0 42 0 112 114 111 116
pub (3) => pub_value
112 117 98
MyClasspriv (11) => second_pub_value
77 121 67 108 97 115 115 112 114 105 118
*/
?>
The char codes show that the protected keys are prepended with '\0*\0' and private keys are prepended with '\0'.__CLASS__.'\0' so be careful when playing around with this.
Anonymous ¶
3 years ago
Cast operators have a very high precedence, for example (int)$a/$b is evaluated as ((int)$a)/$b, not as (int)($a/$b) [which would be like intdiv($a,$b) if both $a and $b are integers].
The only exceptions (as of PHP 8.0) are the exponentiation operator ** [i.e. (int)$a**$b is evaluated as (int)($a**$b) rather than ((int)$a)**$b] and the special access/invocation operators ->, ::, [] and () [i.e. in each of (int)$a->$b, (int)$a::$b, (int)$a[$b] and (int)$a($b), the cast is performed last on the result of the variable expression].
miracle at 1oo-percent dot de ¶
18 years ago
If you want to convert a string automatically to float or integer (e.g. "0.234" to float and "123" to int), simply add 0 to the string - PHP will do the rest.
e.g.
$val = 0 + "1.234";
(type of $val is float now)
$val = 0 + "123";
(type of $val is integer now)
rmirabelle ¶
14 years ago
The object casting methods presented here do not take into account the class hierarchy of the class you're trying to cast your object into.
/**
* Convert an object to a specific class.
* @param object $object
* @param string $class_name The class to cast the object to
* @return object
*/
public static function cast($object, $class_name) {
if($object === false) return false;
if(class_exists($class_name)) {
$ser_object = serialize($object);
$obj_name_len = strlen(get_class($object));
$start = $obj_name_len + strlen($obj_name_len) + 6;
$new_object = 'O:' . strlen($class_name) . ':"' . $class_name . '":';
$new_object .= substr($ser_object, $start);
$new_object = unserialize($new_object);
/**
* The new object is of the correct type but
* is not fully initialized throughout its graph.
* To get the full object graph (including parent
* class data, we need to create a new instance of
* the specified class and then assign the new
* properties to it.
*/
$graph = new $class_name;
foreach($new_object as $prop => $val) {
$graph->$prop = $val;
}
return $graph;
} else {
throw new CoreException(false, "could not find class $class_name for casting in DB::cast");
return false;
}
}
Anonymous ¶
22 years ago
Printing or echoing a FALSE boolean value or a NULL value results in an empty string:
(string)TRUE //returns "1"
(string)FALSE //returns ""
echo TRUE; //prints "1"
echo FALSE; //prints nothing!
ieee at REMOVE dot bk dot ru ¶
12 years ago
There are some shorter and faster (at least on my machine) ways to perform a type cast.
<?php
$string='12345.678';
$float=+$string;
$integer=0|$string;
$boolean=!!$string;
?>
