Values

Type-coerced access to values held in an array, keyed by name. ValueGetter provides it as static methods, and GetsAsType is the contract an object implements to expose the same five casts over its own data. Row, the class holding a row, is the one implementation, per database Database.

Casting

Each method takes the name and the array, reads $values[$name] ?? null, and casts it. A value the method cannot cast throws InvalidValueCastException, naming the value and the type it could not become.

Method	Returns the value when it is	Otherwise
string(string $name, array $values)	A string, or any numeric value cast to a string.	Throws.
int(string $name, array $values)	An integer, or any numeric value cast to an integer.	Throws.
float(string $name, array $values)	A float, or any numeric value cast to a float.	Throws.
bool(string $name, array $values)	A boolean, an integer cast to a boolean, or one of the strings true, 1, yes, false, 0, no.	Throws, including for any other string.
array(string $name, array $values)	An array, or a string holding valid JSON, decoded.	Throws.

A name that is absent from the array is read as null, and null satisfies none of the casts. A missing value and a null value fail the same way, and the cast alone cannot tell them apart.

The casts are not symmetrical with one another. string() does not accept a boolean, but bool() accepts an integer. int() accepts a numeric string.

array() validates a string with json_validate() before decoding, and decodes with JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR to a depth of 512.

The contract

interface GetsAsType
{
    public function string(string $name): string;

    public function int(string $name): int;

    public function float(string $name): float;

    public function bool(string $name): bool;

    public function array(string $name): array;
}

An implementation supplies the array itself, so a caller names only the value. Each method throws InvalidValueCastException on a value it cannot cast.

Errors

Exception	Thrown when
InvalidValueCastException	A value cannot be cast to the type asked for.