How to Convert a String to a Number in PHP

Topic: PHP / MySQLPrev|Next

Answer: Use Type Casting

As we know PHP does not require or support explicit type definition in variable declaration. However, you can force a variable to be evaluated as a certain type using type casting.

Let's try out the following example to understand how this works:

<?php
$num = "2.75";
 
// Cast to integer
$int = (int)$num;
echo gettype($int); // Outputs: integer
echo $int; // Outputs: 2
 
// Cast to float
$float = (float)$num;
echo gettype($float); // Outputs: double
echo $float; // Outputs: 2.75
?>

You can use (int) or (integer) to cast a variable to integer, use (float), (double) or (real) to cast a variable to float. Similarly, you can use the (string) to cast a variable to string, and so on.

The PHP gettype() function returns "double" in case of a float for historical reasons.

Alternatively, you can also use the intval() function to get the integer value of a variable.

<?php
echo intval(2);       // Outputs: 2
echo intval(2.75);    // Outputs: 2
echo intval('34');    // Outputs: 34
echo intval('+34');   // Outputs: 34
echo intval('-34');   // Outputs: -34
echo intval(034);     // Outputs: 28
echo intval('034');   // Outputs: 34
echo intval(1e10);    // Outputs: 10000000000
echo intval('1e10');  // Outputs: 10000000000
echo intval(0xff);    // Outputs: 255
echo intval('0xff');  // Outputs: 0
?>

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