Introduction

PHP supports eight primitive types.

Four scalar types:

• boolean

• integer

• floating-point number (double)

• string

Two compound types:

• array

• object

And finally two special types:

• resource

• null

The type of a variable is usually not set by the programmer; rather, it is decided at runtime by PHP depending on the context in which that variable is used.

If you would like to force a variable to be converted to a certain type, you may either cast the variable or use the settype() function on it.

Note that a variable may behave in different manners in certain situations, depending on what type it is at the time. For more information, see the section on Type Juggling.