PHP Floating Point Data Type

Definition and Usage

In PHP, float data type represents any number with a provision to contain a fractional part. The fractional part may contain digits after decimal point, or may be represented in scientific notation using either e or E. For example 100 in scientific notation is 10e2.

Size of a float depends on the hardware/OS platform, although precision upto 14 digits after decimal point is commonly found.

Syntax

//Literal assignment of float value to variable
$var=5327.496; // standard notation
$var1=5.327496e3; // Scientific notation
$var2=5.327496E3; //Scientific notation
$var3=5_327.496; //sepration symbol

For better readibility, integer literal may use "_" as separation symbol which will be omitted by PHP scanner while processing.

$var=5_327.496; // it will treated as 5327.496

PHP Version

Use of separation symbol "_" is avilable since PHP 7.40

Following example shows float literal representation in standard notations.

Example

<?php
$var=5327.496;
echo $var . "\n";
?>

Output

This will produce following result −

5327.496

This Example uses scientific notation

Example

<?php
$var1=5.327496e3; <br />
echo $var . "\n";<br />$var2=5.327496E3; <br />
echo $var . "\n";
?>

Output

This will produce following result −

5327.496
5327.496

This example using separation symbol "_" (This will run for PHP 7.40 onwards)

Example

<?php
$var3=5_327.496;
echo $var . "\n";
?>

Output

This will produce following result −

5327.496