In PHP, what is the difference between 'type juggling' and 'implicit type casting'?
Answer:
Type juggling occurs when you are assigning a variable a value of a different data type.
Implicit type casting occurs when you are using a variable in a context different to its current data type.
Example:
$a = "10"; $b = 5; $c = "total"; $c = $a + $b;
In the last line, we are type juggling $c from 'string' to 'int', because we are assigning it an integer value. Also, we are implicitly casting the value of $a from a 'string' to an 'int' because we are using it in a mathematical context.
Note that in the above example we are not type juggling $a. We are simply casting its value and not changing its data type. So you append the below code to the code above, it will still print "string".
echo gettype($a);