Is there a straightforward way of determining the number of decimal places in a(n) integer/double value in PHP? (that is, without using explode
)
18 Answers
$str = "1.23444";
print strlen(substr(strrchr($str, "."), 1));

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11This wouldn't work on extremely large or extremely small floats that get converted to scientific notation when represented as a string. – GordonM Feb 11 '15 at 13:19
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6An example: `var_dump((string)(0.00000000000012));` outputs `string(7) "1.2E-13"` – ThW Feb 26 '15 at 10:40
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6@GordonM You can get around that with number_format: `$str = rtrim(number_format($value, 14 - log10($value)), '0');`. 14 is based on the maximum precision of floats in PHP; it may need to be reduced a bit if you're doing some math on the float first (especially if it was obtained by subtracting two larger numbers). – Brilliand Jun 12 '15 at 23:02
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4If using with a lot of numbers, it may be more efficient to just substract 1, instead of getting the substring: strlen(strrchr($str, "."))-1; – vicenteherrera Dec 30 '15 at 10:36
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@GordonM Your solution is genius. But is depending on php not changing the precission sometime in the future or on rather unusual systems – Hafenkranich Jan 23 '18 at 06:47
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@Brilliand This solution has a problem that the TypeError: number_format() expects parameter 2 to be integer, float given occurs. – Lunack Apr 05 '18 at 08:00
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@VijaySankhat Actually it works perfectly since you do have 2 decimals. If you'd like to do some kind of "rounding" on a string, then you can try something like `strlen(substr(strrchr(rtrim($str, "0"), "."), 1));` – Coldark Aug 13 '19 at 13:21
Less code:
$str = "1.1234567";
echo (int) strpos(strrev($str), ".");

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2Clever. Just FYI if the number has no decimal point, `strpos` will return `false` instead of `0` – andrewtweber Sep 30 '21 at 17:57
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1
You could try casting it to an int, subtracting that from your number and then counting what's left.

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3Very good answear in my opinion, if I am right you must mean this: `echo strlen($num-(int)$num)-2;` – Melsi Feb 25 '12 at 16:06
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2`$decimals = ( (int) $num != $num ) ? (strlen($num) - strpos($num, '.')) - 1 : 0; ` works with negative numbers too. – Evan Mattson Apr 14 '13 at 01:22
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@EvanMattson that will not work for very large floats that overflow. – APorter1031 Feb 23 '21 at 14:26
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1I was doing this in Dart, and this doesn't work because floating point subtraction is not precise, e.g. doing `(3.005 - 3).toString().length` got me 20. I expect this behaviour in any programming language? – Ben Butterworth Mar 05 '21 at 19:15
function numberOfDecimals($value)
{
if ((int)$value == $value)
{
return 0;
}
else if (! is_numeric($value))
{
// throw new Exception('numberOfDecimals: ' . $value . ' is not a number!');
return false;
}
return strlen($value) - strrpos($value, '.') - 1;
}
/* test and proof */
function test($value)
{
printf("Testing [%s] : %d decimals\n", $value, numberOfDecimals($value));
}
foreach(array(1, 1.1, 1.22, 123.456, 0, 1.0, '1.0', 'not a number') as $value)
{
test($value);
}
Outputs:
Testing [1] : 0 decimals
Testing [1.1] : 1 decimals
Testing [1.22] : 2 decimals
Testing [123.456] : 3 decimals
Testing [0] : 0 decimals
Testing [1] : 0 decimals
Testing [1.0] : 0 decimals
Testing [not a number] : 0 decimals

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2note that php interprets a literal 1.0 in source as integer so when converted to string it does not have decimals. (even if you cast it to float at declaration so `$variable = (float)1.0;` ***does not work***) – Kris Mar 12 '10 at 03:06
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3This wouldn't work with very small or very big floats, which are output as scientific notation when cast to string. var_dump (strval (1/1000000)); – GordonM Feb 11 '15 at 13:22
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1This does not work in an international context, but with a little change it will: `$localconv = localeconv(); return strlen($value) - strrpos($value, $localconv['decimal_point']) - 1;` – Jasper Briers Dec 16 '21 at 15:49
I needed a solution that works with various number formats and came up with the following algorithms:
// Count the number of decimal places
$current = $value - floor($value);
for ($decimals = 0; ceil($current); $decimals++) {
$current = ($value * pow(10, $decimals + 1)) - floor($value * pow(10, $decimals + 1));
}
// Count the total number of digits (includes decimal places)
$current = floor($value);
for ($digits = $decimals; $current; $digits++) {
$current = floor($current / 10);
}
Results:
input: 1
decimals: 0
digits: 1
input: 100
decimals: 0
digits: 3
input: 0.04
decimals: 2
digits: 2
input: 10.004
decimals: 3
digits: 5
input: 10.0000001
decimals: 7
digits: 9
input: 1.2000000992884E-10
decimals: 24
digits: 24
input: 1.2000000992884e6
decimals: 7
digits: 14

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I used the following to determine whether a returned value has any decimals (actual decimal values, not just formatted to display decimals like 100.00):
if($mynum - floor($mynum)>0) {has decimals;} else {no decimals;}

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<?php
test(0);
test(1);
test(1.234567890);
test(-123.14);
test(1234567890);
test(12345.67890);
function test($f) {
echo "f = $f\n";
echo "i = ".getIntCount($f)."\n";
echo "d = ".getDecCount($f)."\n";
echo "\n";
}
function getIntCount($f) {
if ($f === 0) {
return 1;
} elseif ($f < 0) {
return getIntCount(-$f);
} else {
return floor(log10(floor($f))) + 1;
}
}
function getDecCount($f) {
$num = 0;
while (true) {
if ((string)$f === (string)round($f)) {
break;
}
if (is_infinite($f)) {
break;
}
$f *= 10;
$num++;
}
return $num;
}
Outputs:
f = 0
i = 1
d = 0
f = 1
i = 1
d = 0
f = 1.23456789
i = 1
d = 8
f = -123.14
i = 3
d = 2
f = 1234567890
i = 10
d = 0
f = 12345.6789
i = 5
d = 4

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This was the only solution I get. Test: https://phpsandbox.io/e/x/73eup?layout=EditorPreview&defaultPath=%2F&theme=dark&showExplorer=no&openedFiles= – alvaro.canepa Mar 07 '23 at 18:22
Here's a function that takes into account trailing zeroes:
function get_precision($value) {
if (!is_numeric($value)) { return false; }
$decimal = $value - floor($value); //get the decimal portion of the number
if ($decimal == 0) { return 0; } //if it's a whole number
$precision = strlen($decimal) - 2; //-2 to account for "0."
return $precision;
}

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This was great, but there's a shorter way to do it: is_numeric($value) ? max(strlen(strrchr(abs($value), ".")) - 1, 0) : FALSE; – Giles B Oct 25 '17 at 13:54
Something like:
<?php
$floatNum = "120.340304";
$length = strlen($floatNum);
$pos = strpos($floatNum, "."); // zero-based counting.
$num_of_dec_places = ($length - $pos) - 1; // -1 to compensate for the zero-based count in strpos()
?>
This is procedural, kludgy and I wouldn't advise using it in production code. But it should get you started.

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I tried changing the sample value to an integer value, and the result says "2". What I'm trying to achieve is a process that will return 0 if the number is an integer, else the number of decimal places – Erwin Mar 12 '10 at 02:36
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1When you say 'integer' did your integer have the form '10.00' or '10'? – David Thomas Mar 12 '10 at 02:42
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Its value is 10. I'm expecting different kind of format such as 10, 10.00, 10.000. Based on the format, I will have to know the number of decimal digits used – Erwin Mar 12 '10 at 02:44
Solution
$num = "12.1234555";
print strlen(preg_replace("/.*\./", "", $num)); // 7
Explanation
Pattern .*\.
means all the characters before the decimal point with its.
In this case it's string with three characters: 12.
preg_replace
function converts these cached characters to an empty string ""
(second parameter).
In this case we get this string: 1234555
strlen
function counts the number of characters in the retained string.

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3Perhaps this answer could be improved by explaining your code for OP – WillardSolutions Dec 23 '16 at 22:27
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1This use case will not handle values without decimals. This is correct implementation limited replace (to turn off global replace): `strlen(preg_replace('/[\d]+[\.]?/', '', $finalValue, 1))` – Pion Mar 01 '18 at 09:24
If you want readability for the benefit of other devs, locale safe, use:
function countDecimalPlacesUsingStrrpos($stringValue){
$locale_info = localeconv();
$pos = strrpos($stringValue, $locale_info['decimal_point']);
if ($pos !== false) {
return strlen($stringValue) - ($pos + 1);
}
return 0;
}
see localeconv

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I had no idea I did that. I approved it. Later that day I looked at this and found the edit not to have applied, so I changed it myself. No idea what happened. – Ian Sep 25 '18 at 20:50
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1Well it's still not there so I'm going to resubmit it. The function does not work as is on floats that do not have a leading digit such as .25 or .3333 . (vs 0.25 or 0.3333). This is because $pos is 0 which evaluates to false. In this case, 0 is exactly the right answer, so we need to do a a type savvy check for $pos !== false instead. strrpos will return false if the decimal character is not found at all, but 0 if it is the first character in the string. – Phil Hilton Sep 26 '18 at 02:52
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Thanks Phil, I ran some unit tests and it now handles values without a preceding number, E.g. .34 – Ian Sep 26 '18 at 10:45
Int
Integers do not have decimal digits, so the answer is always zero.
Double/Float
Double or float numbers are approximations. So they do not have a defined count of decimal digits.
A small example:
$number = 12.00000000012;
$frac = $number - (int)$number;
var_dump($number);
var_dump($frac);
Output:
float(12.00000000012)
float(1.2000000992884E-10)
You can see two problems here, the second number is using the scientific representation and it is not exactly 1.2E-10.
String
For a string that contains a integer/float you can search for the decimal point:
$string = '12.00000000012';
$delimiterPosition = strrpos($string, '.');
var_dump(
$delimiterPosition === FALSE ? 0 : strlen($string) - 1 - $delimiterPosition
);
Output:
int(11)

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First I have found the location of the decimal using strpos
function and increment the strpos
postion value by 1 to skip the decimal place.
Second I have subtracted the whole string length from the value I have got from the point1.
Third I have used substr
function to get all digits after the decimal.
Fourth I have used the strlen
function to get length of the string after the decimal place.
This is the code that performs the steps described above:
<?php
$str="98.6754332";
echo $str;
echo "<br/>";
echo substr( $str, -(strlen($str)-(strpos($str, '.')+1)) );
echo "<br/>";
echo strlen( substr( $str, -(strlen($str)-(strpos($str, '.')+1))) );
?>

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@Stibu hi..i have updated the answer please check and let me know if you have any concern. – rahul sharma Dec 29 '15 at 12:22
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You added some text, which is definitely a good idea. Since I'm not familiar with PHP, I can not judge the contents of your post. I have tried to clean up the formatting and reworded your last sentence. If you do not agree with the changes, feel free to remove them or edit again. – Stibu Dec 29 '15 at 12:49
This will work for any numbers, even in scientific notation, with precision up to 100 decimal places.
$float = 0.0000005;
$working = number_format($float,100);
$working = rtrim($working,"0");
$working = explode(".",$working);
$working = $working[1];
$decmial_places = strlen($working);
Result:
7
Lengthy but works without complex conditionals.

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1Actually, it doesn't work at all. [demo](http://sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/a190385ce2c93a596108800c3d1ad4cefb5a493d) – Coldark Aug 13 '19 at 13:10
$value = 182.949;
$count = strlen(abs($value - floor($value))) -2; //0.949 minus 2 places (0.)

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1I got a problem with precision on php in this test return 0.94900000000001 – Leonardo Jorge Oct 19 '13 at 06:58
You should always be careful about different locales. European locales use a comma for the thousands separator, so the accepted answer would not work. See below for a revised solution:
function countDecimalsUsingStrchr($stringValue){
$locale_info = localeconv();
return strlen(substr(strrchr($stringValue, $locale_info['decimal_point']), 1));
}
see localeconv

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