Variable Handling Functions

Introduction

For information on how variables behave, see the Variables entry in the Language Reference section of the manual.

Requirements

No external libraries are needed to build this extension.

Installation

There is no installation needed to use these functions; they are part of the PHP core.

Runtime Configuration

The behaviour of these functions is affected by settings in php.ini.

Table 328. Variables Configuration Options

Name	Default	Changeable	Changelog
unserialize_callback_func	NULL	PHP_INI_ALL	Available since PHP 4.2.0.

For further details and definitions of the PHP_INI_* constants, see the Appendix I, php.ini directives.

Here's a short explanation of the configuration directives.

unserialize_callback_func string

The unserialize() callback function will called (with the undefined class' name as parameter), if the unserializer finds an undefined class which should be instanciated. A warning appears if the specified function is not defined, or if the function doesn't include/implement the missing class. So only set this entry, if you really want to implement such a callback-function.

Resource Types

This extension has no resource types defined.

Predefined Constants

This extension has no constants defined.

Table of Contents

debug_zval_dump — Dumps a string representation of an internal zend value to output
doubleval — Alias of floatval()
empty — Determine whether a variable is empty
floatval — Get float value of a variable
get_defined_vars — Returns an array of all defined variables
get_resource_type — Returns the resource type
gettype — Get the type of a variable
import_request_variables — Import GET/POST/Cookie variables into the global scope
intval — Get the integer value of a variable
is_array — Finds whether a variable is an array
is_binary — Finds whether a variable is a native binary string
is_bool — Finds out whether a variable is a boolean
is_buffer — Finds whether a variable is a native unicode or binary string
is_callable — Verify that the contents of a variable can be called as a function
is_double — Alias of is_float()
is_float — Finds whether the type of a variable is float
is_int — Find whether the type of a variable is integer
is_integer — Alias of is_int()
is_long — Alias of is_int()
is_null — Finds whether a variable is NULL
is_numeric — Finds whether a variable is a number or a numeric string
is_object — Finds whether a variable is an object
is_real — Alias of is_float()
is_resource — Finds whether a variable is a resource
is_scalar — Finds whether a variable is a scalar
is_string — Find whether the type of a variable is string
is_unicode — Finds whether a variable is a unicode string
isset — Determine whether a variable is set
print_r — Prints human-readable information about a variable
serialize — Generates a storable representation of a value
settype — Set the type of a variable
strval — Get string value of a variable
unserialize — Creates a PHP value from a stored representation
unset — Unset a given variable
var_dump — Dumps information about a variable
var_export — Outputs or returns a parsable string representation of a variable

Code Examples / Notes » ref.var

tapken

This function will return a nice tree-view of an array. It's like var_dump but much prettier :-) Very useful to analyze an array while debugging. function parray($array,$prep = '') { /* (c) by Roland Tapken <tapken@engter.de> */ $prep = "$prep|"; while(list($key,$val) = each($array)) { $type = gettype($val); if(is_array($val)) { $line = "-+ $key ($type)\n"; $line .= parray($val,"$prep "); } else { $line = "-> $key = \"$val\" ($type)\n"; } $ret .= $prep.$line; } return $ret; } Example: $array = array("test",2,array("foo" => "bar"), 4.23); echo "<pre>"; echo parray($array); echo "</pre>"; This will print: |-> 0 = "test" (string) |-> 1 = "2" (integer) |-+ 2 (array) | |-> foo = "bar" (string) |-> 3 = "4.23" (double)

skelley

Sorry to say Mykolas, but your definition would not be correct. isempty() evaluates to true for NULL, 0, "", false or 'not set' for any variable, object etc. that can be set to a value. isset() evaluates to true if the variable, object etc. exists at all, whether it is 'empty' or not. Example: $foo = 0; isset($foo); //will evaluate to true. !empty($foo); //will evaluate to false. unset($foo); isset($foo); //will evaluate to false. !empty($foo); //will evaluate to false.

jfrasca

I needed a simple function that would reduce any kind of variable to a string or number while retaining some semblance of the data that was stored in the variable. This is what I came up with: <? function ReduceVar ($Value) { switch (gettype($Value)) { case "boolean": case "integer": case "double": case "string": case "NULL": return $Value; case "resource": return get_resource_type($Value); case "object": return ReduceVar(get_object_vars($Value)); case "array": if (count($Value) <= 0) return NULL; else return ReduceVar(reset($Value)); default: return NULL; } } ?>