Question

In PHP, it seems like every object can be converted to an integer, just by calling intval($object), but this is not what I want. What I want is, to check if the object would be valid to be converted into an integer for what a human thinks it is.

I.e., valid objects would be

• 12
• 12.0
• "12"
• "12.0"

And not valid would be

• MyFooInstance()
• "some string"
• "12.0.0"
• "0 12.0"

etc.
In python, I could simply to the following:

try:
    int(var)
except (TypeError, ValueError):
    return False
return True

How can I achive this in PHP?

Answer 1

Use is_numeric.

<?php
$tests = array(
    "42", 
    1337, 
    "1e4", 
    "not numeric", 
    array(), 
    9.1
);

foreach ($tests as $element) {
    if (is_numeric($element)) {
        echo "'{$element}' is numeric", PHP_EOL;
    } else {
        echo "'{$element}' is NOT numeric", PHP_EOL;
    }
}
?>


'42' is numeric
'1337' is numeric
'1e4' is numeric
'not numeric' is NOT numeric
'Array' is NOT numeric
'9.1' is numeric

(From the page)