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To: internals@lists.php.net
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:03:00 -0400
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Subject: bug 43053 - scientific notation
From: rbro@hotmail.com ("Ryan Brothers")

Hello,

I just wanted to find out the status of bug 43053 
(http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=43053) which is regarding inconsistent 
handling of floating point numbers which seems to have changed in PHP 5.2.2 
and later, but I don't see it documented nor see it listed on any changelog 
or announcement.  The problem is that certain floating point numbers are 
being printed in scientific notation while others aren't - for example, 
1200000.00 prints as 1.2E+6 while 1300000.00 prints as 1300000.  In PHP 
5.2.1 and earlier, 1200000.00 printed as 1200000.  This then causes output 
and validation issues since if the 1.2E+6 number is being passed somewhere 
else, sprintf must be wrapped around it (e.g. echo'ed in the script, put in 
a xml document validated against a schema, etc).

While I understand that the way floating point numbers are stored can vary 
and shouldn't be relied upon, I'm more curious why a change was made in PHP 
5.2.2 to print certain numbers in scientific notation, as it makes working 
with floating point numbers much more difficult in PHP - in all previous 
versions of PHP, these numbers were printed out in full form, not in 
scientific notation.

Appreciate any help or feedback you could provide-

Thanks,
Ryan