How to identify the type of a variable?

[Mirko-Tebaldi]

Question

Is there a way to try to identify what is the expected type of a variable?

Imagine I have

if(in_array($variable, $may_be_array)) 

I would like to check if $may_be_array has been defined previously in the file and eventually check also if the var is an array or not.

If this is possible, I can prepend a force init of array as empty array only when needed.

this because in our code base we have > 300 situations where we have error reported about the second variable being not an array

[samsonasik]

You can use:

$scope->getType($expr);

see example use case on https://github.com/rectorphp/rector-src/blob/2ae2430ceb73c3533dded760b0ddda9e5d68c61e/rules/CodeQuality/Rector/Foreach_/ForeachItemsAssignToEmptyArrayToAssignRector.php#L117