What does this PHP syntax mean? Can't find any information in the docs
<pre><code>function get( $str ){
    $matches = $this-&gt;xml-&gt;xpath("/conf/item [@name= \"$str\"]");
    if (count($matches)) {
    $this-&gt;lastmatch = $matches[0];
    return (string) $matches[0];
}
</code></pre>

<p>I can't find any information about what the last line of this code does. </p>

<p>What does this <strong>(string) $matches[0]</strong> piece do? </p>

<p>As I can guess, it returns the zero element of the array as a string. But I didn't find any mention about this syntax in the docs.</p>

<p>Am I right?</p>

<p>And it will be great if you provide me with a link where I can read about this.</p>