"Use type casting instead" inspection should probably be disabled by default

[Ocramius]

Consider following code snippet:

class Something
{
    public function __toString() : string {
        return 'ohai!';
    }
}

function gimmeSomething() : Something
{
    // ... 
}

echo gimmeSomething()->__toString();

This reports "(string) gimmeSomething() would express the intent better".

I've put a lot of thought in this last year, and I think an explicit ->__toString() call is preferable. Specifically, if gimmeSomething() changes to nullable:

function gimmeSomething() : ?Something
{
    // ... 
}

Then the expression (string) echo gimmeSomething() keeps working (bug), while echo gimmeSomething()->__toString(); crashes (null pointer exception, expected).

I've documented this in more detail at ShittySoft/symfony-live-berlin-2018-doctrine-tutorial#3 (comment), but using a (string) cast is most probably not to be endorsed.

I'm not sure if this is related to the discussion above (or if it is a core IDE bug), but the following doesn't seem to report a NPE either:

<?php

class Something
{
    public function __toString() : string {
        return 'ohai!';
    }
}

function gimmeSomething() : ?Something
{
    return new Something();
}

// NPE here - not being reported
echo gimmeSomething()->__toString();

[kalessil]

Done: made this configurable, opted-out by default.

[Ocramius]

Thank you 💃