gettype

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

gettype — Get the type of a variable

Description

string gettype ( mixed $var )

Returns the type of the PHP variable var.

Warning

Never use gettype() to test for a certain type, since the returned string may be subject to change in a future version. In addition, it is slow too, as it involves string comparison.

Instead, use the is_* functions.

Parameters

var

The variable being type checked.

Return Values

Possibles values for the returned string are:

• "boolean"
• "integer"
• "double" (for historical reasons "double" is returned in case of a float, and not simply "float")
• "string"
• "array"
• "object"
• "resource"
• "NULL"
• "unknown type"

Examples

Example #1 gettype() example

<?php

$data = array(1, 1., NULL, new stdClass, 'foo');

foreach ($data as $value) {
    echo gettype($value), "\n";
}

?>

The above example will output something similar to:

integer
double
NULL
object
string

See Also

• settype() - Set the type of a variable
• get_class() - Returns the name of the class of an object
• is_array() - Finds whether a variable is an array
• is_bool() - Finds out whether a variable is a boolean
• is_float() - Finds whether the type of a variable is float
• is_int() - Find whether the type of a variable is integer
• is_null() - Finds whether a variable is NULL
• is_numeric() - Finds whether a variable is a number or a numeric string
• is_object() - Finds whether a variable is an object
• is_resource() - Finds whether a variable is a resource
• is_scalar() - Finds whether a variable is a scalar
• is_string() - Find whether the type of a variable is string
• function_exists() - Return TRUE if the given function has been defined
• method_exists() - Checks if the class method exists