scientific notation to decimal

I posted this before, but no one seemed to wish to answer. So I'll enunciate my problem a bit better. I'm adding to integers, like so: function getSum() { ... return $s1 + $s2; } Then somewhere I do this: $sum = getSum(); $sum is a valid 'double' value, but it's in scientific notation, like this: "9.7136607599772E+16". I'm using this number as an integer to delete conditionally in my database, and I need to get it out of scientific notation into decimal notation, like this: "971366075997720". I know a 'long' can store this on my machine, but PHP doesn't seem to differentiate between 'int's and 'long's. When I try to convert it to an 'int', I get a negative number. Does anyone have any idea how I can get this out of scientific notation into decimal? I'd like to shy away from bcmath if I can, but if I have to, I can just recompile PHP with bcmath and try it that way. Any ideas? Dean.