Re: Problems with strings being handled like numbers

Are you sure you're getting the number as you need it from the query? PHP won't (though I guess there could be a bug) automatically convert a numerical string into it's numerical equivalent. If the code you posted produces this problem, then the only possiblities I see are that the mssql module is returning a number, or the database query is returning that particular string. Chris J B wrote:

I suspect I'm far from the first person to have this problem, but I can't seem to find the right search terms to locate the solution. Basically, I'm doing a database query and dumping the results into an array. Then, later, when I try to display the contents of the array, I run into problems. One of the database fields is a very long number, basically an 18-or-so-digit serial number. When I tell PHP to print the array variable that corresponds to that field, I get what looks like a floating point number in exponent notation. I need to display the entire number as it appears in the database. Here's the code that does the db lookup and putting the info into the array: ----- cut here $con = mssql_connect($hostname, $username, $password) or die("Database failed to respond."); mssql_select_db($dbName, $con) or die("Table unavailable."); $query = "SELECT * FROM Voucher WHERE (Number LIKE '%" . $_POST['vouchernum'] . "');"; $result = mssql_query($query, $con); $result_numrows = mssql_num_rows($result); $tmpvar = 0; $vouchers[] = ''; for ($i = 0; $i < $result_numrows; ++$i) { $line = mssql_fetch_row($result); $vouchers[$tmpvar][0] = $line[0]; $vouchers[$tmpvar][1] = $line[4]; $vouchers[$tmpvar][2] = $line[5]; $vouchers[$tmpvar][3] = $line[6]; $vouchers[$tmpvar][4] = $line[13]; $vouchers[$tmpvar][5] = $line[14]; $vouchers[$tmpvar][6] = $line[15]; $vouchers[$tmpvar][7] = $line[16]; $tmpvar++; } mssql_close($con); echo("<pre>"); print_r($vouchers); echo("</pre>"); ----- cut here Basically, $line[0] aka $vouchers[$tmpvar][0] is a really big number and it's being treated like a number when I need it to be treated like a string and just printed. I tried playing around with typecasting, but I couldn't get it to do anything different. Thanks in advance for any help, and if I need to provide more info feel free to let me know.