How to Convert Boolean to String

Question

I have a Boolean variable which I want to convert to a string:

$res = true;

I need the converted value to be of the format: \"true\"

Answer 1

For me, I wanted a string representation unless it was null, in which case I wanted it to remain null.

The problem with var_export is it converts null to a string "NULL" and it also converts an empty string to "''", which is undesirable. There was no easy solution that I could find.

This was the code I finally used:

if (is_bool($val)) $val ? $val = "true" : $val = "false";
else if ($val !== null) $val = (string)$val;

Short and simple and easy to throw in a function too if you prefer.