PHP gettype() Function

The PHP gettype() function returns the type of the PHP variable.

Syntax

gettype(variable)

Parameters

Return Value

Returns the type of the variable. Possible values for the returned string are:

• "boolean"
• "integer"
• "double" (for historical reasons "double" is returned in case of a float)
• "string"
• "array"
• "object"
• "resource"
• "resource (closed)"
• "NULL"
• "unknown type"

Example: gettype() example

The example below shows the usage of gettype() function.

<?php
echo "gettype(10):      ".gettype(10)."\n";  
echo "gettype(10.5):    ".gettype(10.5)."\n";
echo "gettype(1e5):     ".gettype(1e5)."\n";
echo "gettype('10.5'):  ".gettype('10.5')."\n";
echo "gettype('xyz'):   ".gettype('xyz')."\n";
echo "gettype(false):   ".gettype(false)."\n";
echo "gettype(null):    ".gettype(null)."\n";
echo "gettype(array()): ".gettype(array())."\n";
echo "gettype([]):      ".gettype([])."\n";
?>

The output of the above code will be:

gettype(10):      integer
gettype(10.5):    double
gettype(1e5):     double
gettype('10.5'):  string
gettype('xyz'):   string
gettype(false):   boolean
gettype(null):    NULL
gettype(array()): array
gettype([]):      array

Example: using with object and resource variables

Consider the example below where this function is used with object and resource variables. Lets assume that we have a file called test.txt in the current working directory.

<?php
$file = fopen("test.txt","r");
echo gettype($file)."\n";

fclose($file);
echo gettype($file)."\n";

$iter = new ArrayIterator();
echo gettype($iter)."\n";
?>

The output of the above code will be:

resource
resource (closed)
object