How to convert string to boolean php

Strings always evaluate to boolean true unless they have a value that’s considered “empty” by PHP (taken from the documentation for empty):

1. "" (an empty string);
2. "0" (0 as a string)

If you need to set a boolean based on the text value of a string, then you’ll need to check for the presence or otherwise of that value.

$test_mode_mail = $string === 'true'? true: false;

EDIT: the above code is intended for clarity of understanding. In actual use the following code may be more appropriate:

$test_mode_mail = ($string === 'true');

or maybe use of the filter_var function may cover more boolean values:

filter_var($string, FILTER_VALIDATE_BOOLEAN);

filter_var covers a whole range of values, including the truthy values "true", "1", "yes" and "on". See here for more details.