On Wednesday, 9 July 2025 at 22:26, Claude Pache <claude.pa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> A possible reason for wanting to use the non-canonical names in settype(), is
> that those names are returned by gettype(). Fictional example (not intended
> to be reasonable, only illustrative):
>
> ```php
> function settype_from(&$a, &b) {
> return settype($a, gettype($b));
> }
> ```
>
> Personally, I have used "integer", etc. instead of "int", etc., in settype()
> in the past, because those were the “canonical” (as I perceived) forms
> returned by gettype(). I have slowly fallen out of that habit in the years
> after I began to use scalar type declarations (introduced in PHP 7).
We are well aware of this "issue" and get_debug_type() was introduced in PHP 8
as a replacement for gettype() that returns the canonical names.
The one difference is that objects return the class name rather than "object".
I can add a deprecation of gettype() to nudge people to use get_debug_type()
instead, if you think that's reasonable.
Best regards,
Gina P. Banyard
