The Object (compound) Type
Like every programming language, PHP offers the usual basic primitive types which can hold only one piece of data at a time (scalar). I am particularly fond of the "object" type (compound) because that allows me to group many basic PHP types together, and I can name it anything I want.
<?php
class Person
{
$firstName; // a PHP String
$middleName; // a PHP String
$lastName; // a PHP String
$age; // a PHP Integer
$hasDriversLicense; // a PHP Boolean
}
?>
Here, I have grouped several basic PHP types together, (3) Strings, (1) Integer, and (1) Boolean... then I named that group "Person". Since I used the proper syntax to do so, this code is pure PHP, which means that if you run this code, you would have an extra PHP "type" available to you in your scripts, like so:
<?php
$myAge = 16; // a PHP Integer - always available
$yourAge = 15.5; // a PHP Float - always available
$hasHair = true; // a PHP Boolean - always available
$greeting = "Hello World!" // a PHP String - always available
$person = new Person(); // a PHP Person - available NOW!
?>
You can make your own object types and have PHP execute it as if it were part of the PHP language itself. See more on classes and objects in this manual at: http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.php
Chapitre 11. Les types
Introduction
PHP supporte les huit types basiques suivants :
PHP supporte quatre types scalaires :
PHP supporte deux types composés : PHP supporte deux types spéciaux :NULL
Habituellement, le type d'une variable n'est pas déclaré par le programmeur. Il est décidé au moment de l'exécution par PHP, en fonction du contexte dans lequel la variable est utilisée.
Note : Si vous voulez vérifier le type et la valeur d'une variable ou d'une expression, utilisez la fonction var_dump().
Note : Si vous souhaitez simplement une représentation lisible pour du débogage, utilisez la fonction gettype(). Pour vérifier la présence de certains types, n'utilisez pas gettype(), mais plutôt les fonctions is_type. Par exemple :
Si vous voulez forcer une variable à être convertie en un certain type, vous devez transtyper (cast) la variable ou utiliser la fonction settype().
Il est à noter qu'une variable peut se comporter de manière différente suivant les situations, en fonction du type qui lui est affectée. Pour plus d'informations, voir le paragraphe sur le transtypage. Vous pouvez également être intéressé par la table de comparaison des types, qui vous montrent des exemples variés concernant les relations de comparaisons des types.
Note that you can chain type castng:
var_dump((string)(int)false); //string(1) "0"
if we use gettype() before initializinf any variable it give NULL
for eg.
<?php
$foo;
echo gettype($foo);
?>
it will show
NULL
The differance of float and double dates back to a FORTRAN standard. In FORTRAN Variables aren't as loosly written as in PHP and you had to define variable types(OH NOES!). FLOAT or REAL*4 (For all you VAX people out there) defined the variable as a standard precision floating point, with 4 bytes of memory allocated to it. DOUBLE PRECISION or REAL*8 (Again for the VAX) was identical to FLOAT or REAL*4, but with an 8 byte allocation of memory instead of a 4 byte allocation.
In fact most modern variable types date back to FORTRAN, except a string was called a CHARACHTER*N and you had to specify the length, or CHARACHTER*(*) for a variable length string. Boolean was LOGICAL, and there weren't yet objects, and there was support for complex numbers(a+bi).
Of course, most people reading this are web programmers and could care less about the mathematical background of programming.
NOTE: Object support was added to FORTRAN in the FORTRAN90 spec, and expanded with the FORTRAN94 spec, but by then C was the powerful force on the block, and most people who still use FORTRAN use the FORTRAN77.
