Question

I need to be able to strip from characters from a few variables leaving only the numbers and the £ sign (unless of course mysql can add that in itself?) and also any . separators.

so if the variable $price_data contains

Now £193.95

How do I end up with

193.95 ?

Reason I need this done is I need to be able to insert the data into the field as decimal, and be able to arrange it from least to most expensive.

Answer 1

Depending on the input data it might be more reliable to remove any leading or trailing non-numbers:

$price = preg_replace('_^\D+|\D+$_', "", $price_data);

This leaves in the dot if enclosed by numbers, and would work with a literal £ as well as the £ escape, and removes any trailing garbage.