Hi.

Yesterday the RFC about "Scalar Type Declarations" has been finally accepted by the PHP developer community. The RFC could be found here: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/scalar_type_hints_v5

The names int, float, string and bool are recognised and allowed as type declarations, and prohibited from use as class/interface/trait names (including with use and class_alias).

A new declare() directive is added, strict_types, which takes either 1 or 0. If 1, strict type-checking mode is used for function calls and return statements in the the file. If 0, weak type-checking mode is used.
The declare(strict_types=1) directive must be the first statement in a file. If it appears anywhere else in the file it will generate a compiler error. Block mode is also explicitly disallowed (declare(strict_types=1); is the only allowed form). 

Example:

<?php
function add(int $a, int $b) {
    return $a + $b;
}

var_dump(add(1, 2)); // int(3)

// floats are truncated by default
var_dump(add(1.5, 2.5)); // int(3)
 
//strings convert if there's a number part
var_dump(add("1", "2")); // int(3)
?>

The RFC is very detailed. It would be great if Netbeans would support these type declarations in the next version.