Integers in PHP
An integer is a number of the set ? = {..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ...}.
See also:
- Arbitrary length integer / GMP
- Floating point numbers
- Arbitrary precision / BCMath
Syntax
Integers can be specified in decimal (base 10), hexadecimal (base 16), octal (base 8) or binary (base 2) notation, optionally preceded by a sign (- or +).
Binary integer literals are available since PHP 5.4.0.
To use octal notation, precede the number with a 0 (zero). To use hexadecimal notation precede the number with 0x. To use binary notation precede the number with 0b.
Example #1 Integer literals
<?php
$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)
?> Formally, the structure for integer literals is:
decimal : [1-9][0-9]*
| 0
hexadecimal : 0[xX][0-9a-fA-F]+
octal : 0[0-7]+
binary : 0b[01]+
integer : [+-]?decimal
| [+-]?hexadecimal
| [+-]?octal
| [+-]?binary
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). 64-bit platforms usually have a maximum value of about 9E18. PHP does not support unsigned integers. Integer size can be determined using the constant PHP_INT_SIZE, and maximum value using the constant PHP_INT_MAX since PHP 4.4.0 and PHP 5.0.5.
If an invalid digit is given in an octal integer (i.e. 8 or 9), the rest of the number is ignored.
Example #2 Octal weirdness
<?php
var_dump(01090); // 010 octal = 8 decimal
?> 
