... PHP 3 <= 3.0.18, PHP 4 >= 4.0.0) gettype -- Get the type of a variable . string gettype ( mixed var) . Returns the type of the PHP variable var . ... Never use gettype() to test for a certain type, since the returned string may be subject to change in a future version. ... double " (for historical reasons "double" is returned in case of a float , and not simply "float") . ... For PHP 4, you should use function_exists() and method_exists() to replace the prior usage of gettype() on a function. ...