How to convert string to integer with (int)/intval?

[luftikus143]

Hi there,

gush, frustrating. I am not a pro; but I know PHP well enough to understand how it works. And a simple conversion from string to integer via (int)$value or intval($value) should be straightforward. But it's not working in my case.

I have a string:

% population: 99%

which holds some information I extract via preg_match.

The resulting variable $r[0] is "99". I have an

if (($r[0] >= 75))

which used to work. But I don't know for what reason, that doesn't do it anymore.

I tried all combinations of (int) and intval()

$t = (int)$r[0];
$t = intval($r[0];

, but in vain. It treats my variable afterwards as 0.

What is wrong here?!

Thanks for any hints!

[Dormilich]

depending on your RegEx, $r[0] might not be "99" any more.

[luftikus143]

Thanks. But I checked that, and the value of $r[0] is "99". But it won't convert into a number.

[Dormilich]

what does var_dump($r[0]); give you?

[luftikus143]

I am not in the office right now. Will check tomorrow. Thanks already for the hints!

[luftikus143]

Ok, so, it gives me a

string(5) "99"

. What does that mean? That the value is 5 characters long? Why would that be?

[Dormilich]

exactly, you could have some whitespace before and/or after. you could try trimming the value beforehand.

PS. verify the output in the (HTML) source, as HTML itself trims whitespace in its rendering.

[luftikus143]

I did try as well the "trim" the other day, but nothing did change...

[Dormilich]

well, you need to find out, why the string length is given as 5.

[luftikus143]

Strange, strange. I used a trim, but nothing changed. It seems that when the number has two places (i.e >= 10), it turns from string(4) to string(5).

string(4) "9"
string(5) "22"

Perhaps a clue for someone? I am really stuck. No idea what to do.

Thanks a lot for any hints!

[Dormilich]

what does this look like in the (HTML) source code?

EDIT: do you use UTF-8? try running htmlentities() (with the appropriate encoding) on it.

[luftikus143]

Ha, jackpot! And I feel stupid that I haven't looked in the HTML code myself before. Indeed, there is a "<b>9" and "<b>22", instead of the pure number. Thanks a thousand times for this hint! Great!!