What potential pitfalls can arise when trying to determine the data type of a variable in PHP?

When trying to determine the data type of a variable in PHP, one potential pitfall is using the `gettype()` function, which may not always return the expected result due to PHP's loose typing system. To accurately determine the data type of a variable, it is recommended to use the `var_dump()` function, which not only displays the data type but also the variable's value. 

$variable = "Hello";
var_dump($variable); // This will output string(5) "Hello"

Keywords

Type juggling data type conversion strict comparison type casting variable validation

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