note 124984 added to function.microtime

It is important to note that microtime(TRUE) does NOT always return a float (at least in PHP 5.x; I have not tested 7.x). If it happens to land on an exact second, it returns an integer instead. Here is some simple code to illustrate this: <?php for ($i = 0; $i < 5000; $i++) { echo microtime(TRUE) . "\n"; usleep(100); // Adjust this if your PC is too fast/slow } ?> When you run this at a command line, you'll see output like this (and you'll know EXACTLY when I ran this): 1588881290.9992 1588881290.9994 1588881290.9996 1588881290.9998 1588881291 <-- Look, Ma, an integer! 1588881291.0002 1588881291.0004 1588881291.0006 1588881291.0008 Why does this matter? Because if you want to format microtime into a very friendly but exact date/time, this popular code will fail on exact seconds (but works great otherwise): <?php $raw_time = DateTime::createFromFormat('U.u', microtime(TRUE)); // This line will not create an object when microtime returns an integer because it depends on the number being a float, including a decimal point! $today = $raw_time->format('Y-m-d H:i:s.u'); // This will die when format is attempted on a non-object ?> The fix is to format the microtime output to force it to always be a float: <?php $utime = sprintf('%.4f', microtime(TRUE)); $raw_time = DateTime::createFromFormat('U.u', $utime); $today = $raw_time->format('Y-m-d H:i:s.u'); ?> Paraphrasing the characters on Silicon Valley, "Always Float! Always Float! Always Float!" ---- Server IP: 45.112.84.4 Probable Submitter: 38.142.137.34 (proxied: 24.14.82.234) ---- Manual Page -- http://php.net/manual/en/function.microtime.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/124984 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/124984/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/124984/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/124984/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/124984/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/124984/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/124984/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/124984 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/124984 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php