[Resolved] Problem with numeric value extracting as string

[Spinball]

Hi folks,
I have an SQL retrieve from a database which is working fine. One part of it goes like this:

... SUM( reviews.review_rating ) / COUNT( products.product_id ) AS review_rating...

When I run the SQL query in PHPMyAdmin, the results are returned fine as numeric values with 2 decimal places.
In the code, I do the following:

    while ( $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result) ) {
      $review_rating = $row["review_rating"];

I would expect $review_rating to have a value of, for example, 7.00 or 8.50.
But it's a string with value 7 or 9.
Can anyone point me in the direction of this error, please?
PHP Version 4.3.11
MySQL 4.0.21
Thanks.

[bradgrafelman]

Sounds like MySQL typecasts integers to strings when they are returned.

I don't doubt it... otherwise, what if you had an integer of 0 or 1? That would be equivalent to FALSE or TRUE respectively.

Two things you could do. First of all, MySQL is returning the floats/integers as it would any number; that is, it strips extra 0's on the right side of the decimal. If you want to keep a certain number of decimals while checking, try this:

while ( $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result) ) { 
      $review_rating = number_format($row["review_rating"], 2, '.', '');

[Spinball]

Thanks bradgrafelman.

[bradgrafelman]

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