Creating strictly typed arrays and collections in PHP

You might thing that PHP is not able to automatically perform a type check on items in an array. But using variadic constructor this is possible. Bert Ramakers wrote a blogpost with some good examples on how to do this.

One of the language features announced back in PHP 5.6 was the addition of the “…” token to denote that a function or method accepts a variable length of arguments.

Something I rarely see mentioned is that it’s possible to combine this feature with type hints to essentially create typed arrays.

https://medium.com/2dotstwice-connecting-the-dots/creating-strictly-typed-arrays-and-collections-in-php-37036718c921

Join 9,500+ smart developers

Every month I share what I learn from running Spatie, building Oh Dear, and maintaining 300+ open source packages. Practical takes on Laravel, PHP, and AI that you can actually use.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. You can also follow me on X.

Found something interesting to share? Submit a link to the community section.