Re: Thoughts on Feature Request - Arithmetic

Daniel and Derick, thanks for the replies.. Daniel first.. <?=3 * 5;?> is great :) however $arithmetic_string = "3*5"; $arithmetic_value = arith($arithmetic_string); not possible with the method you mentioned. eval() yes this works, however personally I feel a simple arith() (or more suitably named function) would be a great deal quicker and safer than eval($_POST['sum']), the security dangers are somewhat obvious. ps: I must point out that I've still never had a use for this and never would (perhaps the fraction??), but somebody over on a dev forum does, and I was quite suprised this functionality wasn't included! :P Nathan Daniel Brown wrote:

On Dec 7, 2007 9:51 AM, Nathan Rixham <nrixham@gmail.com> wrote:

In-Built PHP Functions for parsing of basic arithmetic and if possible fraction to decimal and decimal to fraction

    PHP already handles half of what you're looking for by default.

$arithmetic_string = "3*5"; echo arith($arithmetic_string); // returns float 15

    <?=3 * 5;?>

$arithmetic_string = "1/2"; echo arith($arithmetic_string); // returns float 0.5

    <?=1 / 2;?>

$fraction_string = "1/4"; echo fracdec($fraction_string); // returns float 0.25

    <?=1 / 4; ?>

$dec_string = "0.5"; echo decfrac($dec_string); // returns string "1/4"

    Now I see why you need PHP to do your math for you!  ;-P

    There are functions written that do this now though.

I've used php for years, came accross the need for this today and was suprised such a basic command wasn't there.. currently the only way I can see to do it would be to eval.. which isn't the most secure method for such a basic need. Regards Nathan -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php