PHP - Serialize floating points

Question

I am generating 10 random floats between 6 and 8 (all for good reason), and writing them to a mysql database in a serialized form. But one quirk seems to emerge at the stora

Answer 1

Store them as integers (shift the first decimal place in front of the point by multiplying it by 10) and convert them back if you need it:

function random_float($min,$max) {
    return ($min+lcg_value()*(abs($max-$min)));
}

$array = array();
for ($i=0; $i<10; $i++) {
    $array[] = (int) round(random_float(6, 8) * 10);
}
$serialized = serialize($array);
var_dump($serialize);

$array = unserialize($serialized);
foreach ($array as $key => $val) {
    $array[$key] = $val / 10;
}
var_dump($array);