valueint

Valueint is a term used in the context of PHP’s internals and some C extensions to denote a macro or helper that retrieves the integer value from a Zend value (zval). In PHP’s engine, variables are stored as zvals and can hold several types such as null, long, double, string, or object. When code requires a numeric value at the C level, valueint serves as a shorthand for obtaining the integer representation from a zval, enabling arithmetic or array- indexing operations in extensions.

Historically, valueint has appeared as a convenience wrapper around lower-level accessors such as Z_LVAL_P(zv). As PHP evolved—from the older Zend Engine to PHP 7 and beyond—the internal representation of zvals changed, and direct access macros like Z_LVAL_P became standard. Some codebases maintain a compatibility macro named valueint to bridge older code to newer PHP versions, helping maintain portability across releases.

Usage considerations include understanding that valueint operates on a value container and assumes the stored value is or can be meaningfully interpreted as an integer. In userland PHP code, valueint is not used; userland code should rely on intval() or explicit casting to int. In extensions, developers should perform appropriate type checks (for example, IS_LONG or IS_STRING) before applying valueint or rely on the current standard accessors provided by the Zend Engine.

See also: Zend Engine, zval, Z_LVAL_P, zend_long, PHP extensions, intval.