Re: [RFC] Deprecate Fuzzy Type Casts and Allow Stringable in Strict Mode

On Fri, Jan 23, 2026, at 11:48, Alexandre Daubois wrote: > Hello everyone, > > Before going further with our already under discussion RFC about > nullable casts, Nicolas Grekas and I would like to present this new > RFC about deprecating fuzzy casts, and adding support for Stringable > in string parameters when using strict mode. > > RFC: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecate-fuzzy-casts > > Thanks, > > — Alexandre Daubois > This is interesting. As a user of non-strict mode, I rarely need casts. That being said, after working on tons of strict-mode code bases, this is exactly the footgun I use to show how strict-mode is actually bad for their code base: I remove the casts and turn off strict mode, and the application actually crashes because it was silently handling bad inputs all over the place. Here's a pretty good example I saw a few weeks ago: $newBalance = (int)$walletBalance; $wallet->store($newBalance); /* ... later ... */ $log->append($walletBalance); // which takes a string Now, if this string is something like "1000; drop table money" and there isn't proper injection protection... you're in for a bad day. Without strict mode: $wallet->store($walletBalance); // TypeError: cannot coerce string to int That being said, I think the more proper solution is to simply remove strict mode instead of making casts stricter. Why? Sometimes you actually do need to use a cast to force a specific type, and you want to use the loss of information. Like I’m pretty sure casting a float to an integer is faster than calling floor(), and you end up with an integer, not a float. Secondly, to properly use strict-mode, you have to religiously cast everything, which hides errors that’d otherwise appear. But getting rid of lossy casting seems like trying to apply a tourniquet to the wrong limb. — Rob