Test: (int) vs. settype

If you already have a variable, logic tells us that changing is type might be faster than creating a new value (which a cast does.) But, is this true?

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Historical Results

Based on (2) saved test runs, The test labeled "(int)" was (on average) the faster by 0.0032 seconds, (0.391% faster)

(int) 100%

settype() 99.609%

The (int) test took 0.82 seconds.
The settype() test took 0.8232 seconds.

Nitty-Gritty

Each test case ran 20 random code order iterations consisting of 212,309 loops for a total of 4,246,180 runs.

Line execution difference (0.000001) milliseconds.
Avg difference (0.000) milliseconds per 212,309 loops.
Total difference 3.22 milliseconds for 4,246,180 loops

The iteration variablity for Code 1 was (0.0000) milliseconds and Code 2 was (0.0000) milliseconds. The lower and the closer together there values are the more accurate the results are.

Code

The first test, "(int)", was:

for ($j = 0; $j < 100; $j++)
{
	$i = '42 ';
	$i = (int) $i;
}

The second test, "settype()", was:

for ($j = 0; $j < 100; $j++)
{
	$i = '42 ';
	settype($i, 'int');
}

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