RE: [PHP] Round

I believe there is some confusion on what ABS actually does. Ignoring all the rounding that you are trying to do ABS is a very simple function. ABS definition: Returns the absolute value of number. What that means is. Abs(1) = 1 Abs(2) = 2 Abs(3) = 3 Abs(0) = 0 Abs(-1) = 1 Abs(-2) = 2 Abs(-3) = 3 Simply put, returns the positive value of the number given. Thus if you put it on a negative number it will always return positive. This most likely doesn't help what your trying to do, but I wanted to clarify this as you keep stating you are expecting a -1 when you use the ABS function. Unless someone has some trick that I don't know about, ABS will NEVER return a negative number. -----Original Message----- From: Jim Lucas [mailto:lists@cmsws.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 1:43 PM To: Daniel Brown Cc: Zoltán Németh; php-general@lists.php.net Subject: Re: [PHP] Round Daniel Brown wrote: > On 8/29/07, Zoltán Németh <znemeth@alterationx.hu> wrote: >>> Think this through before you respond... >>> >>> Try this >>> >>> <?php >>> var_dump( round(-0.26) ); >>> var_dump( abs( round(-0.26) ) ); >>> var_dump( round(-1.26) ); >>> var_dump( abs( round(-1.26) ) ); >>> ?> >>> >>> does this give you the desired results? >>> >>> What if I expected -1 for the last answer? > > It didn't take much thinking this time.... if you were expecting > -1 for the last answer, you'd be wrong. ;-P > > The very nature of abs() is to return an absolute number, which is > never a negative. > Exactly my point, abs() is not the answer if he had any negative number that did not round to zero, say it would round to -2, then having the abs() in the calculations would return 2 instead of -2, which would be wrong. From what I read from the OP, I don't think this is what he was looking for. the op was asking why he got -0 instead of 0. not for a solution to fix it. ok, better example. <plaintext><?php $list[] = 1; # I expect to get 1 and I get 1 $list[] = -1; # I expect to get -1 but I get 1 $list[] = -1.2; # I expect to get -1 but I get 1 $list[] = -0.23; # I expect to get 0 and I get 0 $list[] = -0.75; # I expect to get -1 and I get 1 foreach ($list AS $value) { var_dump( abs( round($value) ) ); } ?> But, from what the OP says, he would get -0 instead of 0 for the 4th entry. Am I correct with this? if so, you could try casting it as an int like so var_dump( (int)round(-0.26) ); That might fix the problem -- Jim Lucas "Some men are born to greatness, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene V by William Shakespeare -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php