Determine type? no. Get info tho with `i`

There is no direct way to get a variable type in Elixir. For instance type("") is not something that exists although there are 15 Kernel methods for specific type determination such as:

iex > is_number(1)
true
iex > is_binary("") # Note that elixir checks for binary instead of string, a string is a binary.
true
iex > is_atom(:hey)
true

There is an i function available only in iex that will print out useful information about a variable.

iex > i("")
Term
  ""
Data type
  BitString
Byte size
  0
Description
  This is a string: a UTF-8 encoded binary. It's printed surrounded by
  "double quotes" because all UTF-8 encoded codepoints in it are printable.
Raw representation
  <<>>
Reference modules
  String, :binary

It's implemented as a protocol check it out.

I discovered it here.