php / php/doc-en

Clarifications on settype() behaviour wrt coercion and failure

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Category: Engine good first issue Status: Verified
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Description

The following code:

<?php

class Foo {
    public int $value = 123;
}

$foo = new Foo;
$ref = &$foo->value;

var_dump(settype($ref, "string"));
var_dump($ref);
var_dump($foo->value);

Resulted in this output:

bool(true)
int(123)
int(123)

But I expected this output instead:

bool(false)
int(123)
int(123)

Well either bool(false) or a type error, as its supposed to return false when setting the type fails according to the documentation.
Although that's probably inaccurate, as the following code:

<?php

class Foo {
    public int $value = 123;
}

$foo = new Foo;
$ref = &$foo->value;

var_dump(settype($ref, "null"));
var_dump($ref);
var_dump($foo->value);

Results in: Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: Cannot assign null to reference held by property Foo::$value of type int.
And the code for settype can only return true as far as I can see.

So there's two documentation issues:

  • The function can only return true. On error it throws TypeErrors
  • It coerces in non-strict mode. That's why the string assignment in the first eaxmple "works". (This is also tested as a variant in ext/standard/tests/general_functions/settype_typed_property.phpt, but I didn't know this at first, until I tried fixing the behaviour I thought was a bug).

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the settype() documentation entry and review ext/standard/tests/general_functions/settype_typed_property.phpt for the typed-property behavior described here. Update the documentation to state the actual coercion behavior and that failures throw TypeError rather than returning false, then verify the examples and return-value wording are consistent.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
php
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
50/100

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