LonghornPHP 2026

    The BcMath\Number class

    (PHP 8 >= 8.4.0)

    Introduction

    A class for an arbitrary precision number. These objects support overloaded arithmetic and comparison operators.

    Note:

    This class is not affected by the bcmath.scale INI directive set in php.ini.

    Note:

    The behavior of an overloaded operator is the same as specifying null for the scale parameter on the corresponding method.

    Class synopsis

    namespace BcMath;
    final readonly class Number implements Stringable {
    /* Properties */
    public string $value;
    public int $scale;
    /* Methods */
    public function __construct(string|int $num)
    public function add(BcMath\Number|string|int $num, ?int $scale = null): BcMath\Number
    public function ceil(): BcMath\Number
    public function compare(BcMath\Number|string|int $num, ?int $scale = null): int
    public function div(BcMath\Number|string|int $num, ?int $scale = null): BcMath\Number
    public function divmod(BcMath\Number|string|int $num, ?int $scale = null): array
    public function floor(): BcMath\Number
    public function mod(BcMath\Number|string|int $num, ?int $scale = null): BcMath\Number
    public function mul(BcMath\Number|string|int $num, ?int $scale = null): BcMath\Number
    public function pow(BcMath\Number|string|int $exponent, ?int $scale = null): BcMath\Number
    public function powmod(BcMath\Number|string|int $exponent, BcMath\Number|string|int $modulus, ?int $scale = null): BcMath\Number
    public function round(int $precision = 0, RoundingMode $mode = RoundingMode::HalfAwayFromZero): BcMath\Number
    public function __serialize(): array
    public function sqrt(?int $scale = null): BcMath\Number
    public function sub(BcMath\Number|string|int $num, ?int $scale = null): BcMath\Number
    public function __toString(): string
    public function __unserialize(array $data): void
    }

    Properties

    value

    A string representation of an arbitrary precision number.

    scale

    The scale value currently set on the object. For objects resulting from calculations, this value is automatically computed and set, unless the scale parameter was set in the calculation method.

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    User Contributed Notes 2 notes

    up
    4
    harl at gmail dot com
    1 year ago
    BcMath\Number is one of those classes that overloads boolean casting.
If $z = new BcMath\Number(0) then $z is considered falsy (and hence, for example, empty($z)==true) even though it is a genuine Number object.
    up
    3
    miken32 at gmail dot com
    4 months ago
    This class overloads many operators so you can do operations more naturally. But a big caveat is that the strict equality operator *does not work* as demonstrated with this code:

<?php
$sum = new BcMath\Number('23.93') + new BcMath\Number(17) - 6;
echo $sum;            // outputs 34.93

if ($sum < 99 && $sum > 34) {
    echo "foo";       // outputs foo
}

$comp = new BcMath\Number('34.93');
if ($sum === $comp) {
    echo "bar";       // outputs nothing!
}

if ($sum == $comp) {
    // yuck, don't do this
}

if ($sum->compare($comp) === 0) {
    echo "baz";       // outputs baz
}
?>
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