PHP typecasting

Question

I was wondering what is the best way to typecast a value from one type to another.

Which variant should we use:

1. intval($value);
2. settype($value, 'int')
3. (int)$value

All of them produce same result.

Answer 1

(int)$value 

saves one function call compares to intval($value) and settype($value, 'int').

And (int)$value is clean enough, so I prefer this way.

When you need to use intval($value) is that when you need to use the specified base for the conversion (the default is base 10). intval accepts a second parameter for the base for the conversion.

Answer 2

I prefer using

settype($value,getType(intval((int)$value)));