Compare floats in php

Question

I want to compare two floats in PHP, like in this sample code:

$a = 0.17;
$b = 1 - 0.83; //0.17
if($a == $b ){
 echo \'a and b are same\';
}
else {
 echo \'a         


        

Answer 1

If you have a small, finite number of decimal points that will be acceptable, the following works nicely (albeit with slower performance than the epsilon solution):

$a = 0.17;
$b = 1 - 0.83; //0.17

if (number_format($a, 3) == number_format($b, 3)) {
    echo 'a and b are same';
} else {
    echo 'a and b are not same';
}

Answer 2

If you write it just like that it will probably work, so I imagine you've simplified it for the question. (And keeping the question simple and concise is normally a very good thing.)

But in this case I imagine one result is a calculation and one result is a constant.

This violates a cardinal rule of floating point programming: Never do equality comparisons.

The reasons for this are a bit subtle¹ but what's important to remember is that they usually don't work (except, ironically, for integral values) and that the alternative is a fuzzy comparison along the lines of:

if abs(a - y) < epsilon

---

_{1. One of the major problems involves the way we write numbers in programs. We write them as decimal strings, and as a result most of the fractions we write do not have exact machine representations. They don't have exact finite forms because they repeat in binary. Every machine fraction is a rational number of the form x/2ⁿ. Now, the constants are decimal and every decimal constant is a rational number of the form x/(2ⁿ * 5^m). The 5^m numbers are odd, so there isn't a 2ⁿ factor for any of them. Only when m == 0 is there a finite representation in both the binary and decimal expansion of the fraction. So, 1.25 is exact because it's 5/(2²*5⁰) but 0.1 is not because it's 1/(2⁰*5¹). In fact, in the series 1.01 .. 1.99 only 3 of the numbers are exactly representable: 1.25, 1.50, and 1.75.}

Answer 3

If you do it like this they should be the same. But note that a characteristic of floating-point values is that calculations which seem to result in the same value do not need to actually be identical. So if $a is a literal .17 and $b arrives there through a calculation it can well be that they are different, albeit both display the same value.

Usually you never compare floating-point values for equality like this, you need to use a smallest acceptable difference:

if (abs(($a-$b)/$b) < 0.00001) {
  echo "same";
}

Something like that.

Answer 4

Or try to use bc math functions:

<?php
$a = 0.17;
$b = 1 - 0.83; //0.17

echo "$a == $b (core comp oper): ", var_dump($a==$b);
echo "$a == $b (with bc func)  : ", var_dump( bccomp($a, $b, 3)==0 );

Result:

0.17 == 0.17 (core comp oper): bool(false)
0.17 == 0.17 (with bc func)  : bool(true)

Answer 5

Read the red warning in the manual first. You must never compare floats for equality. You should use the epsilon technique.

For example:

if (abs($a-$b) < PHP_FLOAT_EPSILON) { … }

where PHP_FLOAT_EPSILON is constant representing a very small number (you have to define it in old versions of PHP before 7.2)

Answer 6

Here is a useful class from my personal library for dealing with floating point numbers. You can tweek it to your liking and insert any solution you like into the class methods :-).

/**
 * A class for dealing with PHP floating point values.
 * 
 * @author Anthony E. Rutledge
 * @version 12-06-2018
 */
final class Float extends Number
{
    // PHP 7.4 allows for property type hints!

    private const LESS_THAN = -1;
    private const EQUAL = 0;
    private const GREATER_THAN = 1;

    public function __construct()
    {

    }

    /**
     * Determines if a value is an float.
     * 
     * @param mixed $value
     * @return bool
     */
    public function isFloat($value): bool
    {
        return is_float($value);
    }

    /**
     * A method that tests to see if two float values are equal.
     * 
     * @param float $y1
     * @param float $y2
     * @return bool
     */
    public function equals(float $y1, float $y2): bool
    {
        return (string) $y1 === (string) $y2;
    }

    /**
     * A method that tests to see if two float values are not equal.
     * 
     * @param float $y1
     * @param float $y2
     * @return bool
     */
    public function isNotEqual(float $y1, float $y2): bool
    {
        return !$this->equals($y1, $y2);
    }

    /**
     * Gets the bccomp result.
     * 
     * @param float $y1
     * @param float $y2
     * @return int
     */
    private function getBccompResult(float $y1, float $y2): int
    {
        $leftOperand = (string) $y1;
        $rightOperand = (string) $y2;

        // You should check the format of the float before using it.

        return bccomp($leftOperand, $rightOperand);
    }

    /**
     * A method that tests to see if y1 is less than y2.
     * 
     * @param float $y1
     * @param float $y2
     * @return bool
     */
    public function isLess(float $y1, float $y2): bool
    {
        return ($this->getBccompResult($y1, $y2) === self::LESS_THAN);
    }

    /**
     * A method that tests to see if y1 is less than or equal to y2.
     * 
     * @param float $y1
     * @param float $y2
     * @return bool
     */
    public function isLessOrEqual(float $y1, float $y2): bool
    {
        $bccompResult = $this->getBccompResult($y1, $y2);
        return ($bccompResult === self::LESS_THAN || $bccompResult === self::EQUALS);
    }

    /**
     * A method that tests to see if y1 is greater than y2.
     * 
     * @param float $y1
     * @param float $y2
     * @return bool
     */
    public function isGreater(float $y1, float $y2): bool
    {
        return ($this->getBccompResult($y1, $y2) === self::GREATER_THAN);
    }

    /**
     * A method that tests to see if y1 is greater than or equal to y2.
     * 
     * @param float $y1
     * @param float $y2
     * @return bool
     */
    public function isGreaterOrEqual(float $y1, float $y2): bool
    {
        $bccompResult = $this->getBccompResult($y1, $y2);
        return ($bccompResult === self::GREATER_THAN || $bccompResult === self::EQUALS);
    }

    /**
     * Returns a valid PHP float value, casting if necessary.
     * 
     * @param mixed $value
     * @return float
     *
     * @throws InvalidArgumentException
     * @throws UnexpectedValueException
     */
    public function getFloat($value): float
    {
        if (! (is_string($value) || is_int($value) || is_bool($value))) {
            throw new InvalidArgumentException("$value should not be converted to float!");
        }

        if ($this->isFloat($value)) {
            return $value;
        }

        $newValue = (float) $value;

        if ($this->isNan($newValue)) {
            throw new UnexpectedValueException("The value $value was converted to NaN!");
        }

        if (!$this->isNumber($newValue)) {
            throw new UnexpectedValueException("The value $value was converted to something non-numeric!");
        }

        if (!$this->isFLoat($newValue)) {
            throw new UnexpectedValueException("The value $value was not converted to a floating point value!");
        }

        return $newValue;
    }
}
?>