This statement does not serve a purpose anymore.
In a long forgotten world it indicated the main version number of PHP which the code in the file was compatible to.
http://pear.php.net/manual/en/standards.sample.php
But since PHP 5.1 and later this is only marginally true.
Thus I propose to remove it from CakePHP.
https://cakephp.lighthouseapp.com/projects/42648-cakephp/tickets/3515
I used (string) because it is faster than strval() and there are no real benefits in this case.
Also enabled assign(), append() and prepend() to take any values convertible to string.
Removed try/catch as discussed with ADmad.
Changed the three exception expecting tests to check for PHPUnit_Framework_Error now.
Fixes exceptions being raised when you tried to render
elements inside blocks. Instead compare the number of open blocks.
This should not change before/after rendering a view.