PHP return type

Question

Is it possible to define the return type like this?

public static function bool Test($value)
{
      return $value; //this value will be bool
}

Answer 1

Since this question still comes up in search engine results, here is an up-to-date answer:

PHP 7 actually introduced proper return types for functions / methods as per this RFC.

Here is the example from the manual linked above:

function sum($a, $b): float {
    return $a + $b;
}

Or, in a more general notation:

function function_name(): return_type {
    // some code
    return $var // Has to be of type `return_type`
}

If the returned variable or value does not match the return type, PHP will implicitly convert it to that type. Alternatively, you can enable strict typing for the file via declare(strict_types=1);, in which case a type mismatch will lead to a TypeError Exception.

Easy as that. However, remember that you need to make sure that PHP 7 is available on both, your development and production server.