Integers data type in php

An integer is a number of the set Z = {..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ...}.

Syntax

Integers can be specified in decimal (10-based), hexadecimal (16-based) or octal (8-based) notation, optionally preceded by a sign (- or +).

If you use the octal notation, you must precede the number with a 0 (zero), to use hexadecimal notation precede the number with 0x.

Example: Integer literals

$a = 1234; // decimal number

$a = -123; // a negative number

$a = 0123; // octal number (equivalent to 83 decimal)

$a = 0x1A; // hexadecimal number (equivalent to 26 decimal)

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Formally the possible structure for integer literals is:

decimal : [1-9][0-9]*

| 0

hexadecimal : 0[xX][0-9a-fA-F]+

octal : 0[0-7]+

integer : [+-]?decimal

| [+-]?hexadecimal

| [+-]?octal

The size of an integer is platform-dependent, although a maximum value of about two billion is the usual value (that's 32 bits signed). PHP does not support unsigned integers. Integer size can be determined from PHP_INT_SIZE, maximum value from PHP_INT_MAX since PHP 4.4.0 and PHP 5.0.5.

Warning

If an invalid digit is passed to octal integer (i.e. 8 or 9), the rest of the number is ignored.

Example: Octal weirdness

var_dump(01090); // 010 octal = 8 decimal

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Integer overflow

If you specify a number beyond the bounds of the integer type, it will be interpreted as a float instead. Also, if you perform an operation that results in a number beyond the bounds of the integer type, a float will be returned instead.

$large_number = 2147483647;

var_dump($large_number);

// output: int(2147483647)

$large_number = 2147483648;

var_dump($large_number);

// output: float(2147483648)

// it's true also for hexadecimal specified integers between 2^31 and 2^32-1:

var_dump( 0xffffffff );

// output: float(4294967295)

// this doesn't go for hexadecimal specified integers above 2^32-1:

var_dump( 0x100000000 );

// output: int(2147483647)

$million = 1000000;

$large_number = 50000 * $million;

var_dump($large_number);

// output: float(50000000000)

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Warning

Unfortunately, there was a bug in PHP so that this does not always work correctly when there are negative numbers involved. For example: when you do -50000 * $million, the result will be -429496728. However, when both operands are positive there is no problem.

This is solved in PHP 4.1.0.

There is no integer division operator in PHP. 1/2 yields the float 0.5. You can cast the value to an integer to always round it downwards, or you can use the round() function.

var_dump(25/7); // float(3.5714285714286)

var_dump((int) (25/7)); // int(3)

var_dump(round(25/7)); // float(4)

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Converting to integer

To explicitly convert a value to integer, use either the (int) or the (integer) cast. However, in most cases you do not need to use the cast, since a value will be automatically converted if an operator, function or control structure requires an integer argument. You can also convert a value to integer with the function intval().

From booleans

FALSE will yield 0 (zero), and TRUE will yield 1 (one).

From floating point numbers

When converting from float to integer, the number will be rounded towards zero.

If the float is beyond the boundaries of integer (usually +/- 2.15e+9 = 2^31), the result is undefined, since the float hasn't got enough precision to give an exact integer result. No warning, not even a notice will be issued in this case!

Warning

Never cast an unknown fraction to integer, as this can sometimes lead to unexpected results.

echo (int) ( (0.1+0.7) * 10 ); // echoes 7!

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