How to get int instead string from form?

Question

Getting variable from form:

Answer 1

Sending over the wire via HTTP, everything is a string. It's up to your server to decide that "1" should be 1.

Answer 2

I'd use (int)$_POST['a'] to convert it to an integer.

Answer 3

if you prefer mantain a wide type compatibility and preserve input types other than int (double, float, ecc.) i suggest something like this:

$var = is_numeric($_POST['a'])?$_POST['a']*1:$_POST['a'];

You will get:

$_POST['a'] = "abc"; // string(3) "abc"
$_POST['a'] = "10"; // int(10)
$_POST['a'] = "10.12"; // float(10.12)

Answer 4

No. HTTP only deals with text (or binaries).

You have to convert it.

Answer 5

// convert the $_POST['a'] to integer if it's valid, or default to 0
$int = (is_numeric($_POST['a']) ? (int)$_POST['a'] : 0);

You can use is_numeric to check, and php allows casting to integer type, too.

For actual comparisons, you can perform is_int.

Update

Version 5.2 has filter_input which may be a bit more robust for this data type (and others):

$int = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'a', FILTER_VALIDATE_INT);

I chose FILTER_VALIDATE_INT, but there is also FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_INT and a lot more--it just depends what you want to do.