PHP: convert string to float (only if string represents a float)

Question

I have an unknwon string that could resemble a float. In that case I want to convert it to float (for calculations), otherwise leave it as a string.

Answer 1

maybe you would like to use the non-locale-aware floatval function:

float floatval ( mixed $var ) - Gets the float value of a string.

Example from the documentation:

$string = '122.34343The';
$float  = floatval($string);
echo $float; // 122.34343