## Which PHP String to Integer Conversion Method is Fastest: (int) or intval()?

Exploring the Fastest Method for String to Integer Conversion in PHP

To efficiently convert a string like "123" to an integer in PHP, the fastest approach is typecasting using (int). This method significantly outperforms its counterpart, intval().

Performance Comparison

Benchmarking reveals that intval() is approximately two and a half times slower than (int), especially when the input is already an integer. Here are the performance results for various input types:

Function	Time to run 1 million iterations
(int) "123"	0.55029
intval("123")	1.0115 (183%)
(int) "0"	0.42461
intval("0")	0.95683 (225%)
(int) int	0.1502
intval(int)	0.65716 (438%)
(int) array("a", "b")	0.91264
intval(array("a", "b"))	1.47681 (162%)
(int) "hello"	0.42208
intval("hello")	0.93678 (222%)

Handling Unexpected Input

Unexpected input, such as strings containing non-numeric characters or arrays, can be handled differently by these methods:

• (int): Truncates the non-numeric characters and returns the remaining digits.
• intval(): Returns 0 if the input is not a valid number.

Coercion vs. Typecasting

While coercion using 0 $var provides similar performance as (int) for numeric inputs, it fails for non-numeric inputs, returning an error.

Additional Considerations

When selecting a conversion method, be aware of these unexpected behaviors:

• (int) and intval() return 0 for "0x11" due to hexadecimal interpretation.
• (int) retains leading zeros in octal "011," while intval() does not.

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