Standalone Types in PHP 8.2
The inability to type the unit type in PHP is a deficiency which should be resolved.
The Example
An situation that every developer probably already passed through is when a database is down. In our example, we have an function that get the post from the database, but we're simulating that the database is down.
function getPosts(): bool|array
{
// Access the Database and get the Posts
$posts = false; // Assigning the posts as false to simulate an error with the Database, for example
return $posts;
}Note that, the return of the function must be False or an Array. But, we can't define an false return type to a function, so we have to assign the Bool return type. Remember that this function will Never Return True. Well, the Standalone Types (opens in a new tab), introduced in PHP 8.2 (opens in a new tab) fixes that. In our example:
function getPosts(): false|array
{
// Access the Database and get the Posts
$posts = false; // Assigning the posts as false to simulate an error with the Database, for example
return $posts;
}Our function will works in the same way, but now it's clear that this function will return just False or Array
Others Standalone Types 🛒
You can use Null and True as standalone types too.