[Variable Names]

Does it matter if I use the same variable names in different php files? Is this a bad practice or does this really not matter at all?

[Convert a string to an integer]

ok thanks for the clarification

thats cool how strings and ints sort of intertwine, kind of mindblowing (i was expecting some ToInt() function similar to Koobi's suggestion)
but i think i can get used to that

[Convert a string to an integer]

Does this function exist in PHP? I have been searching for this function for a while or any mention of it but have come up with nothing.  I'm using the $_GET['whatever'] to pass variables via the URL, and I am just not sure if that variable which is going to be a number needs to be converted to an integer if i want to use it to access part of an array.

for example, could this hypothetically work? ($a is an array)

$desc = $a[$_GET['whatever']];

I am assuming it will not, but my knowledge of php is very limited