how to format integer with placeholder zeros?

[duckduckgoose]

Don't know if this is possible... But, I have integers 1 through 10 and I want it formatted like 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, but I want to keep them as integers. Is there a way to do that?

[NogDog]

You can use [man]sprintf/man or [man]printf/man as needed when outputting them:

$foo = 2;
printf('%03d', $foo);