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Method '__toString' return type

Reports the __toString methods that do not return string.

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

PhpToStringReturnInspection
Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | PHP | Probable bugs

Prior to PHP 7.4, this would lead to a fatal E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR level error. In PHP 7.4, a fatal non-recoverable ERROR is thrown. In PHP 8.0, the return value follows the standard PHP type semantics and will be coerced into a string if possible and if strict typing is disabled.

See __toString (php.net) for details.

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

//noinspection PhpToStringReturnInspection

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

Last modified: 18 September 2025