In this tutorial, we will be covering some commonly used PHP math functions.
These are built-in PHP that comes with PHP by default. They are a set of math functions that allow you to perform some kind of mathematical task on numbers.
The list of far from exhaustive: there are far more math functions that are less commonly used.
Pi() Function
The pi() function returns the exact value of Pi.
Example
<?php
echo(pi());
// returns 3.1415926535898
?>
Result
Max() And Min()
The max() and min() functions look into a set of numbers and finds the maximum or minimum value of a group of numbers.
Example
<?php
echo(max(0, 20, 50, 800, 178, -888)); // returns 800
echo(min(0, 30, 70, 90, -180, 400)); // returns -180
?>
Result
Abs() Function
The abs() functions returns the absolute or positive value of a number.
Example
<?php
echo(abs(-10.9)); // returns 6.7
?>
Result
So in the above, the negative number becomes a positive one and nothing happens to the positive number.
Sqrt() Function
The sqrt() function simply returns the square root of a particular number. Example
<?php
echo sqrt(144); //returns 12
?>
Result
Round() function
Example
<?php
echo round(0.8);
echo round(19.11); //returns 20
?>
The round() function takes a number and rounds it up to the nearest integer. Result
So in the above example, 0.8 rounds it up to 1 and 19.11 rounds down to 10.
Random() function
A more commonly used is the random() function
Simply put, random() generates a random integer (this differs to some programming languages where the random() equivalent generates a float).
Example
<?php
echo random(1, 100); //returns a random number between 1 to 100.
?>
(one possible) Result
In the above example, both random() generates random numbers.
However, you can add more control to the random number by adding two parameters: the first parameter is the minimum number and the second parameter is the maximum number that can be returned.
For example, by adding 1 and 100 as the two parameters, an integer number between 1 and 100 will be returned.