[RFC] get_debug_type

Greetings,

I offer a short RFC to add a new function, get_debug_type, which would
return the type name of a variable, automatically resolving the class
name in the event of it being an object.

Unlike gettype, this function will return the true name of scalar
types, rather than their aliases, thus get_debug_type will return
"int" rather than "integer" etc.

https://wiki.php.net/rfc/get_debug_type

Mark Randall
marandall@php.net

Can you please add some examples for the behavior? Preferably the precise
output for all primitive types, for classes and for anonymous classes.

Regards,
Nikita

Greetings,

I offer a short RFC to add a new function, get_debug_type, which would
return the type name of a variable, automatically resolving the class
name in the event of it being an object.

Unlike gettype, this function will return the true name of scalar
types, rather than their aliases, thus get_debug_type will return
"int" rather than "integer" etc.

https://wiki.php.net/rfc/get_debug_type

Why "debug" type?

-Mike

I'd definitely agree on returning int instead of integer.

PHP allows both class integer and class resource, so int (plus documenting exact return values for examples, as Nikita mentioned) would be useful to prevent ambiguity.

Also, it'd be nice to have null return the lowercase string null instead of uppercase.

get_canonical_type() is my weak preference. I'd also considered suggesting get_class_or_type(),
but that seemed misleading since the value of get_class_or_type(2) would be different from gettype(2).

This would save some time and make it easier to write better messages debugging, syslogging, throwing exceptions for unexpected values, etc.

• Tyson

Hi Mark

Thanks for this proposal.

After the proposal by Nikita to allow ::class on object variables,
would it be opportune to add ::type for any variable, with this
behavior?

It could behave like ::class on objects and return a string indicator
of the type for other types, such as scalar ones.

This could even include allowing ::type on actual types, i.e.
int::type, MyClass::type, $myVar::type,
GenericTypeInTheFuture<T>::type, and so on.

Greetings,
https://wiki.php.net/rfc/get_debug_type

Just a heads up that I will be putting this to the vote tomorrow.

As this seems fairly uncontroversial, and in the absence of any
well-supported suggestions, the vote will be on adding this as
get_debug_type.

Unless someone chimes in with a major objection, I do not plan on having
a separate vote on the "resource (type)" style and will include it by
default.

--
Mark Randall
marandall@php.net

The name is up for debate.

Cool.

Though still not exactly sure where you are headed with it since there are
few detailed and no code examples the first name that comes to mind for me
would be get_real_type().

-Mike

Erf pls no, I'd rather have something like get_canonical_type()

George P. Banyard

Den man. 17. feb. 2020 kl. 01.25 skrev Mike Schinkel mike@newclarity.net:

Though still not exactly sure where you are headed with it since there are few detailed and no code examples the first name that comes to mind for me would be get_real_type().

"real" is a type in PHP (tho we are phasing that out, see is_real()
and the (real)-cast), so that name would most likely make it more
confusing to userland.

--
regards,

Kalle Sommer Nielsen
kalle@php.net