yiisoft
count() method is returning string not integer
If you use count() method to return the number of rows in your table, you will get the number but as string not integer. You can check that yourself, just var dump the result of your query. Documentation of count() says that it should return integer, and that is what I was hoping for, but got surprised with result. Is this (not)working as intended or I am missing something ?
Docs: http://www.yiiframework.com/doc-2.0/yii-db-query.html#count%28%29-detail
I was doing very simple query $numberOfUsers = User::find()->count();
I use the latest yii2, downloaded today.
This is normal because PDO does always return strings regardless what value it was on DB side. Because PHP is not stricly typed this should not be a problem.
If you are doing strict comparisons of result and some integer value it is. But of course, it is a question do you really need to do strict comparison at all... I guess it is not a "real" problem. Thanks for info.
You should only do strict comparison if you are really sure or really need to. This is not such a case.
if you are really sure
When can count() return not integer number? string|int return type is missleading: people expect to see the number, suspecting that string will be return in a rare strange situation. Everything is quite the opposite, int (0) will be return only if emulateExecution is true...
I would say that we should do it a long time ago. W can safely convert count() result to int, so there is no technical problem here.
But that's quite inconsistent. It's better to cast to string than to have two types. Developers will use === and will be quite surprised when the project DB would exceed 32bit int.
Developers will use === and will be quite surprised when the project DB would exceed 32bit int.
Can you give a code sample, when this will happen? You will get string only if result cannot be converted to integer, so how do you want to use === in this case?
BTW: Developers are already surprised that count() returns string. And such inconsistency already exists in AR.
Actually what @rob006 proposes makes sense in practice. While under a 100 it may make sense to strictly compare counts, more than several thousands should always be done with > or < and for these operators it doesn't really make any difference if operands are strings or ints.
The only con is that we'll have int|string as a type hint :(
The only con is that we'll have int|string as a type hint :(
Numerical string will be returned only in edge cases (when you need integer bigger than your environment can handle). We could:
- Laravel style - f*ck edge cases and always cast to int.
- Remove
stringfrom typehint - in 99.9999% cases you will get int anyway, sostringin typehint may give more harm than good.
@ptz-nerf This is not a code sample. How do you want to use === on comparing result with integer that cannot be represented as integer?
Let's cast to int as @rob006 originally proposed. @yiisoft/core-developers objections?
I'd also expect an integer here.
From https://stackoverflow.com/questions/670662/whats-the-maximum-size-for-an-int-in-php even on 32bit systems this would be limited to ~2 billion, which is quite large and on 64bit to ~9 quintillion.
Given that the result can be of different types on any numbers (https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/pull/14704#issuecomment-324346969), it is better to have int (with @rob006 check) in most situations. On x64 it is insignificant. string really surprised me at the first moment.
whether there is an abstraction layer between it or not, one expects a count function to return a number, not a string. This is the most intuitive result.
