PHP Manual
Variable handling Functions
Get the type of a variable

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. For type checking, use 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