php function to convert a string to a number

marcnyc

Hello, I was wondering if anyone can tell me of any php functions to convert a string into a number. I looked around the php manual but there doesn't seem to be anything like that.

The reason I ask is I have some pages with a string as a variable in the URL:
www.mysite.com/index.php?var=string123
www.mysite.com/index.php?var=2string4

I want to implement the Google Friend Connect Review/Rate gadgets in the page. Since Google Friend connect gadgets need to have a unique ID in order to be used just within the scope of that one page, i wanted to grab the value of $_GET['var'] and convert that into a decimal number.

I tried a function than converts ascii to binary but the Google Friend Connect ID number seems to have to be a decimal number.

Any suggestions?
Thanks

Weedpacket

[man]intval[/man]? Or just cast it? How should "string123" be converted to a number? How should "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" be converted to a number?

gszauer

I think this is along the lines of what you are looking for.
I'm a bit rusty on the sprintf function, so that part might need tweeking.
$string represents the string you want to make into a number, and $decimal specifies how many decimal places it should have.

<?php
function toNumber ($string, $decimal = 0) {
	$decimal = (int)$decimal;
	if (!is_numeric($string))
		return 0;
	$formatted = sprintf('%01.'.$decimal.'f', $string);
	if ($decimal > 0)
		return (double)$formatted;
	else
		return (int)$formatted;
}
?>

Altough, this might be easier:

$variable = (double)$_GET['arg'];

EDIT
I misread the first post.
You need to regex your string for numeric values

marcnyc

What do you mean by "just cast it"?
I need to be able to convert a string to a value that can be converted back into the same string later if need be. I was wondering if there is something like base64_encode that generates a deciml number
I'm open to ideas
Thanks

dagon

ord() and then chr() perhaps? but i think we are still lost on what you want to do, and more importantly why.

marcnyc

I tried to explain...
I want to embed a Google Friend Connect gadget/widget on some of my page but I have to have a unique ID for every gadget/widget and the ID has to be a number that has something to do with the page it is on. Since the pages I am putting it on don't have IDs in the URLs but have variables with strings made of letter and numbers, I have to convert that string into a numerical value.

I am thinking of taking every letter of the string and convert it, say, the position of that letter in the alphabet and create a long string from those numbers... what do you think of that? if you know of a better way please tell me

kterry

Why don't you just create new unique IDs for each? Why do you have to base it on the string?

marcnyc

because there is already a lot of content and the content is dynamically created

marcnyc

after further research I realized that GFC does accept a text string as an ID so I won't need to write this function at all.
Thanks a lot anyways

dagon

still makes no sense marcnyc, but if you look at ord it will give you the ascii value (as an int) of a letter so you can jsut loop through them to get a id

--but no way this is the best option