I know of the declare(strict_types=1); statement, that it switches on strict typing for the file that includes that statement.
However, If you want to enable it for a whole application, including it in every single PHP-file feels unnecessarily complicated.
Because PHP has the include/require statement, which includes another script file, basically "inserting" its code into the current one, I was wondering if it was enough to just include it in the "base" file, e.g. the index.php or maybe the autoloader. That didn't work for me.
So basically I was just wondering, if there is a smarter way to enable strict typing for the whole php application, as if i was including that statement in every file. Maybe a runtime-flag, ini-setting, extension or something else?
From the RFC from when this was initially proposed:
Why Not Add An INI Setting For Default Mode
It's been asked for the ability to switch the default mode from “weak” to “strict” by a mechanism (ini or compile time flag, etc).
Current Position
This proposal takes the opinion that behavior modifying switches like ini settings are a death-toll to portability and well designed languages should not change behavior based on “global settings”. Therefore, switching strict modes will remain a per-file setting for this proposal.
At this point in time, this is still the state of PHP. Will it change? This thread has some insights into slightly more current positions, but I think the gist is “it doesn’t do what a lot of people think it does”, as well as “the person writing the code should have the choice”. (To the latter, a common rebuttal is “I’m the one writing the code”, and that might be true for your project, but this setting would allow someone to turn it on for someone else’s code.)