PHP 8.3.4 Released!

abs

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

absAbsolute value

Description

abs(int|float $num): int|float

Returns the absolute value of num.

Parameters

num

The numeric value to process

Return Values

The absolute value of num. If the argument num is of type float, the return type is also float, otherwise it is int (as float usually has a bigger value range than int).

Changelog

Version Description
8.0.0 num no longer accepts internal objects which support numeric conversion.

Examples

Example #1 abs() example

<?php
var_dump
(abs(-4.2));
var_dump(abs(5));
var_dump(abs(-5));
?>

The above example will output:

float(4.2)
int(5)
int(5)

See Also

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User Contributed Notes 1 note

up
4
eep2004 at ukr dot net
3 years ago
<?php
echo 'PHP '.PHP_VERSION.'<br>';

$qty = 1000;
$arr = array();
for (
$i = 0; $i < $qty; $i++){
$arr[] = rand(-100, 100);
}

$start = microtime(true);
for (
$i = 0; $i < $qty; $i++){
foreach (
$arr as $v){
$v = abs($v);
}
}
echo
number_format(microtime(true) - $start, 4).'<br>';

$start = microtime(true);
for (
$i = 0; $i < $qty; $i++){
foreach (
$arr as $v){
if (
$v < 0) $v = abs($v);
}
}
echo
number_format(microtime(true) - $start, 4).'<br>';

$start = microtime(true);
for (
$i = 0; $i < $qty; $i++){
foreach (
$arr as $v){
if (
$v < 0) $v *= -1;
}
}
echo
number_format(microtime(true) - $start, 4).'<br>';
?>
Result:
PHP 7.1.33
0.0910
0.0710
0.0550

Conclusion: better to check before using the feature that the number is less than zero. Even better use multiplication by -1 than this function.
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