In this tutorial, you shall learn how to get the type of a given variable in PHP using gettype() function, with example programs.
PHP – Get Type of Variable
To get the type of a variable in PHP, call gettype()
function and pass the variable as argument.
gettype()
inbuilt function takes value, expression, or a variable as an argument, and returns a string specifying the type of given argument.
Examples
1. Get the type of variable x
In the following example, we initialize a variable $x
with integer value, and get the type of $x
programmatically using gettype()
function.
PHP Program
<?php $x = 25; echo gettype($x); ?>
Output

2. Get the type of a string literal
In the following example, we get the type of the value 'hello world'
programmatically using gettype()
function.
PHP Program
<?php echo gettype('hello world'); ?>
Output

2. Get the type of an expression
In the following example, we get the type of the expression '$x + $y'
where $x is an integer, and $y is a double. Of course, the expression has to evaluate to a value, and we are using gettype() function to get the type of that resulting value of the expression.
PHP Program
<?php $x = 4; $y = 2.47; echo gettype($x + $y); ?>
Output

Conclusion
In this PHP Tutorial, we learned how to get the type of a variable, a value, or an expression, using gettype()
function, with examples.