PHP supports the following types:
The type of a variable is usually not set by the programmer; rather, it is decided at runtime by PHP depending on the context in which that variable is used.
If you would like to force a variable to be converted to a certain type, you may either cast the variable or use the settype() function on it.
Note that a variable may behave in different manners in certain situations, depending on what type it is a the time. For more information, see the section on Type Juggling.
Integers can be specified using any of the following syntaxes:
$a = 1234; # decimal number $a = -123; # a negative number $a = 0123; # octal number (equivalent to 83 decimal) $a = 0x12; # hexadecimal number (equivalent to 18 decimal)