PHP is not a fully typed language, because of this variables' types are only used depending on the context in which they are referred to.

I have a rather lengthy example to explain this (see below) but I'll try to trim that down before it's committed.


// Example:

<?php

// Unset variable; outputs NULL
var_dump($unset_var);

// Boolean usage; outputs 'false'
echo("Boolean\n");
// See ternary operators for more on this syntax
echo($unset_bool ? "true\n" : "false\n");
echo("\n");

// String usage; outputs 'string(3) "abc"'
echo("String\n");
$unset_str .= 'abc';
var_dump($unset_str);
echo("\n");

// Integer usage; outputs 'int(25)'
echo("Integer\n");
$unset_int += 25; // 0 + 25 => 25
var_dump($unset_int);
echo("\n");

// Float/double usage; outputs 'float(1.25)'
echo("Float\n");
$unset_float += 1.25;
var_dump($unset_float);
echo("\n");

// Array usage; outputs array(1) {  [3]=>  string(3) "def" }
echo("Array\n");
$unset_arr[3] = "def"; // array() + array(3 => "def") => array(3 => "def")
var_dump($unset_arr);
echo("\n");

// Object usage; creates new stdClass object (see http://www.php.net/manual/en/reserved.classes.php)
// Outputs: 
// object(stdClass)#1 (1) {
//    ["foo"]=>
//    string(3) "bar"
// }
echo("Object\n");
$unset_obj->foo = 'bar';
var_dump($unset_obj);
echo("\n");

?>

This bug has been fixed in the documentation's XML sources. Since the
online and downloadable versions of the documentation need some time
to get updated, we would like to ask you to be a bit patient.

Thank you for the report, and for helping us make our documentation better.