Why is type-casting used in PHP, and is it necessary in this specific case?

Type casting is used in PHP to explicitly convert a value from one data type to another. In this specific case, type casting may be necessary when working with variables of different data types in order to ensure that operations are performed correctly. For example, when concatenating a string with a number, type casting may be needed to avoid unexpected results.

// Example of type casting in PHP
$num = 10;
$str = "20";

// Without type casting, concatenating $num and $str would result in "1020"
echo $num . $str . "\n";

// Using type casting to convert $str to an integer before concatenating
echo $num . (int)$str . "\n";