In the gettype[] manual, it says "[for historical reasons "double" is returned in case of a float, and not simply "float"] ".
However, I think that internally PHP sometimes uses the C double definition [i.e. a double is twice the size of a float/real]. See the example below:
//Function required to reverse a string on blocks of two
function strrev_x[$s, $x = 2] {
if [$x