Range Type¶
A first-class range type represents an interval of values, such as 1..10 in Rust or Kotlin, or 1...10 in Swift, as a value in its own right, with its own type. A range can be stored in a variable, passed to a function, matched against with pattern matching, or iterated lazily, and the language often overloads slicing and for syntax to accept it directly.
Because a range is a value, not just a loop construct, it can express things such as switch x { 1..5 => ..., 6..10 => ... } or a slice bound arr[2..5] using the same type.
PHP has no range type. range() is an ordinary function that eagerly builds and returns a plain array of all the values in the interval; the interval itself is never represented as a value, cannot be matched with match, and cannot be used as a slice boundary. Iterating lazily over an interval requires a Generator written by hand, or an external library.
<?php
// range() eagerly materializes the array; there is no interval value.
$values = range(1, 10);
?>
See also range() manual page.
Related : range(), Generator, array_slice(), Pattern Matching
