Syntax

Integers can be specified in decimal (base 10), hexadecimal (base 16), or octal (base 8) notation, optionally preceded by a sign (- or +).

To use octal notation, precede the number with a 0 (zero). To use hexadecimal notation precede the number with 0x.

Formally, the structure for integer literals is:

decimal     : [1-9][0-9]*
            | 0

hexadecimal : 0[xX][0-9a-fA-F]+

octal       : 0[0-7]+

integer     : [+-]?decimal
            | [+-]?hexadecimal
            | [+-]?octal

The size of an integer is platform-dependent, although a maximum value of about two billion is the usual value (that's 32 bits signed). PHP does not support unsigned integers. Integer size can be determined using the constant PHP_INT_SIZE, and maximum value using the constant PHP_INT_MAX since PHP 4.4.0 and PHP 5.0.5.

Integer overflow

If PHP encounters a number beyond the bounds of the integer type, it will be interpreted as a float instead. Also, an operation which results in a number beyond the bounds of the integer type will return a float instead.

There is no integer division operator in PHP. 1/2 yields the float 0.5. The value can be casted to an integer to round it downwards, or the round() function provides finer control over rounding.

Converting to integer

To explicitly convert a value to integer, use either the (int) or (integer) casts. However, in most cases the cast is not needed, since a value will be automatically converted if an operator, function or control structure requires an integer argument. A value can also be converted to integer with the intval() function.

See also: type-juggling.