Why declare PHP variable type in a comment?

Question

I\'m fairly new to PHP, and I just started using NetBeans to develop my PHP code.

Out of the blue, as I entered a variable in a query, a dialog popped up and asked me to

Answer 1

I guess you're talking about something like that:

/**
 * @var SimpleXMLElement $xml
 */
private $xml;

This is so called phpDoc comment. It allows you to generate API documentation (like this one for instance). Furthermore, most IDEs including Eclipse and NetBeans also support that syntax, and provide dynamic code completion etc.