Re: Inconsistent float to string vs. string to float casting

On Wed, Dec 26, 2018 at 4:48 PM Christoph M. Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> wrote: > Hi! > > Regarding the decimal separator (aka. decimal point), the behavior of > casting float to string is inconsistent with casting string to float. > While the former regards the current locale, the latter always expects a > decimal point regardless of the locale. This breaks round-trips for > locales which use something else than a dot as decimal separator (e.g. > German, which uses a comma), for instance: > > $float = 1/3; // float(0,33333333333333) > $string = (string) $float; // string(16) "0,33333333333333" > $float = (float) $string; // float(0) > > As for me, the question is not *if*, but rather *when* and *how* this > inconsistency should be resolved. Regarding the *when*, it seems to me > we have to wait for the next major version, i.e. PHP 8. Regarding the > *how* I tend to prefer the non-locale aware behavior, i.e. float to > string conversion should always produce a decimal *point*. Users still > can explicitly use number_format() or NumberFormatter if they wish. > > Thoughts? > Yes, please. Locale-sensitive library functions are bad enough, but core language behavior should *never* be locale-sensitive. I'm definitely in favor of making float to string casts locale-independent in PHP 8. Nikita