Re: Simple math failing - PHP Bug?

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--- "Brian T. Allen" <brian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Well, in fairness, it's one of the worst ideas you've ever heard
> because you know of this limitation.

Of course. That wasn't a dig at you or anything - just a comment. You're
free to heed or ignore it.

> In reality, using a calculator or something that doesn't share
> this limitation, 0 = 0 and this wouldn't be a problem.

Well, 0 == 0 in PHP, too. Calculators have the same limitations that any
other computing device does. Some modern calculators have some pretty
impressive precision, but it's not hard to exceed it with a few seemingly
harmless operations. A couple of numbers like 12.34567 and 23.45678 can
get pretty nasty with a few operations.

Regardless of this, I'm not in favor of depending on anything that's the
least bit questionable or complicated. I don't even like evaluating
integers as boolean unless they are strictly 0 or 1, and even then there
can be problems (you accidentally decrement a variable twice before
evaluating it again, so that it goes from 1 to -1 and continues to
evaluate as true forever).

In short, complexity breeds problems, regardless of how smart you are.

Chris

=====
Chris Shiflett - http://shiflett.org/

PHP Security - O'Reilly     HTTP Developer's Handbook - Sams
Coming January 2005         http://httphandbook.org/

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