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PHP: is_string - Manual
PHP 7.2.23 Release Announcement

is_string

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

is_stringFind whether the type of a variable is string

Description

is_string ( mixed $var ) : bool

Finds whether the type of the given variable is string.

Parameters

var

The variable being evaluated.

Return Values

Returns TRUE if var is of type string, FALSE otherwise.

Examples

Example #1 is_string() example

<?php
$values 
= array(falsetruenull'abc''23'23'23.5'23.5''' ''0'0);
foreach (
$values as $value) {
    echo 
"is_string(";
    
var_export($value);
    echo 
") = ";
    echo 
var_dump(is_string($value));
}
?>

The above example will output:

is_string(false) = bool(false)
is_string(true) = bool(false)
is_string(NULL) = bool(false)
is_string('abc') = bool(true)
is_string('23') = bool(true)
is_string(23) = bool(false)
is_string('23.5') = bool(true)
is_string(23.5) = bool(false)
is_string('') = bool(true)
is_string(' ') = bool(true)
is_string('0') = bool(true)
is_string(0) = bool(false)

See Also

  • is_float() - Finds whether the type of a variable is float
  • is_int() - Find whether the type of a variable is integer
  • is_bool() - Finds out whether a variable is a boolean
  • is_object() - Finds whether a variable is an object
  • is_array() - Finds whether a variable is an array
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User Contributed Notes 2 notes

up
22
laszlo dot heredy shift-two gmail etc
5 years ago
Using is_string() on an object will always return false (even with __toString()).

<?php
class B {
  public function
__toString() {
    return
"Instances of B() can be treated as a strings!\n";
  }


$b = new B();
print(
$b); //Instances of B() can be treated as a strings!
print(is_string($b) ? 'true' : 'false'); //false
?>
up
9
Peter Barney
2 years ago
As noted earlier, is_string() returns false on an object that has a __toString() method. Here is a simple way to do a check that will work:

<?php
// determine if the passed argument can be treated like a string.
function is_stringy($text) {
    return (
is_string($text) || (is_object($text) && method_exists($text, '__toString' ));
}
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