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Floats

2:30 with Alena Holligan

Not all numbers are as simple as integers. We often need to keep track of fractional values, like product that costs $1.99 or a distance like 2.5 miles. Those values are called floats, floating point values, real numbers or doubles: all names for the same thing. For decimal numbers we use the PHP variable type of Float.

Documentation

floats also known as " Floating point numbers", "doubles", or "real numbers", can be specified using any of the following syntaxes:

$a = 1.234; 
$b = 1.2e3; 
$c = 7E-10;
  • 0:00

    Not all numbers are as simple as integers.

  • 0:02

    We often need to keep track of fractional values like products that cost $1.99,

  • 0:07

    or distance like 2.5 miles.

  • 0:10

    Those values are called floats.

  • 0:12

    Floating point integers, real numbers or doubles, all names for the same thing.

  • 0:18

    For decimal numbers we use the PHP variable type float.

  • 0:23

    Let's start by commenting out these var dumps.

  • 0:28

    Now let's say we want to find the distance of a trip.

  • 0:32

    So we'll create two variables here, distance home and distance to work.

  • 0:36

    Distance_home, we'll set this equal to a floating point and number.

  • 0:43

    We simply set this variable equal to 1.2.

  • 0:46

    Enclose the statement with a semi colon.

  • 0:50

    Then we'll add our second floating point variable distance to work.

  • 0:54

    And will set this equal to 2.5.

  • 0:58

    Again ending with a semi-colon.

  • 1:01

    Now we can use the same type of operations we've done before.

  • 1:06

    Let's do a var dump, and we'll dump

  • 1:10

    the distance home plus the distance to work.

  • 1:18

    All right, now let's save and

  • 1:21

    run our script AS you can see we can take floating point numbers and

  • 1:25

    add them together and get returned a floating point value.

  • 1:31

    Now what if I were to add a non floating point number to this equation.

  • 1:35

    So let's say we'll and the variable num 3.

  • 1:42

    Number three is a whole number.

  • 1:44

    So let's save this script and run it again.

  • 1:49

    Now we see 6.7.

  • 1:50

    So if we take whole numbers and we sum them to floating point numbers

  • 1:55

    we're still going to get a floating point in return.

  • 1:59

    Let's add one more floating point number to make our results a whole number.

  • 2:02

    Let's add 0.3.

  • 2:08

    Again, run the script and

  • 2:10

    we see the results of seven, but the type is still a float.

  • 2:16

    Any time we're using a floating point value the result will be a float as well.

  • 2:21

    Most of the time,

  • 2:22

    you won't need to worry about defining a variable as an integer or a float.

  • 2:26

    PHP automatically handles the differences, so you don't have to.

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