Can you hint return types in PHP 5.2.5?

Question

I think my eclipse's ctrl+clicking links might benefit greatly...

Edit: I'm using eclipse PDT.

Edit 2: I'm very happy with the solution of putting docblocks before functions (and variables) with an @return or @var statement, I've just updated the documentation of my app and now eclipse is showing me what functions are available to what objects!

Awesome.

Answer 1

// [...]
/**
 * Return the Request object
 *
 * @return Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract
 */
public function getRequest()
{
    return $this->_request;
}
// [...]

works perfectly with Eclipse PDT. Which plugin do you use?

Answer 2

The only way to hint return type in PHP is to use a good IDE like Eclispe PDT or Zend Studio with standard comment block. PHP simply can n not predict return type because it is dynamically typed language so type checking is done in the run time unlike for the statically typed languages like C#, JAVA and C++.

Answer 3

Short answer: no.

Long answer: consider adding docblocks with @return declarations.