title: PHP typecasting null or int
body: <p>I want to let a variable be an int unless the variable is null.<br>
  This is the way I fixed it atm but there's got to be a better solution.</p>
  
  <pre><code>if ($answer == null) {
        $all_questions[] = array (
          'object_id'     =&gt; (int) $stored_question-&gt;getObjectId(),
          'question_code' =&gt; $stored_question-&gt;getQuestionCode(),
          'answer'        =&gt; $stored_question-&gt;getAnswer()
        );
      }
      else{
        $all_questions[] = array (
          'object_id'     =&gt; (int) $stored_question-&gt;getObjectId(),
          'question_code' =&gt; $stored_question-&gt;getQuestionCode(),
          'answer'        =&gt; (int) $stored_question-&gt;getAnswer()
        );
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>At least I hope there is because this seems redundant.</p>