Question

I have a variable that is…

$whatever = "5865/100";

This is a text variable.

I want it to calculate 5865/100 , so that I can add it to other numbers and do a calculation.

Number_format doesn’t work, as it just returns “5,865”. Whereas I want it to return 58.65

I could do…

$explode=explode("/",$whatever);
if(count($explode)=="2") {
    $whatever = $explode[0]/$explode[1];
}

But it seems rather messy. Is there a simpler way?

Answer 1

Evaluate as PHP expression, but first check if it contains only digits and operators and space, and suppress any errors.

if (preg_match('/^[\d\+\-\/\*\s]+$/', $s)) {
  @eval('$result = ' . $s . ';');
}