in php5, how to stop GET from (wrongly) converting into numeric?

Question

in relation to php int64 limits, if the uri has a int64 argument, how do you prevent GET from wrongly converting it into numeric and simply keeping it as a string?

http://some.com?id=1707541557936130

then

echo $_GET['id'] => 1.7075415579361E+15

how to prevent this and have $_GET['id'] be the string 1707541557936130?

the way $_GET works now is unusable. need to parse $_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"] myself. but then never know when php will grab a variable and incorrectly convert again.

NOTE: afaik this will be a problem on 32bit, not 64bit php installs.

Answer 1

bite the bullet and install 64bit - it's what's on your server anyway

Answer 2

Everyrthing coming out of _GET/_POST/_COOKIE is a string. That data wouldn't be converted to a number unless you did something that forced it to be interpreted as one.

echo $_GET['id']; // echoes your big number
echo $_GET['id'] + 0; // forces an int conversion

Answer 3

This should get the job done.

echo (string) $_GET['id'];

Answer 4

If the current solutions are not working you can append a string character to the integer such as

http://some.com?id=i1707541557936130

Additionally, if it is an issue of how the float is displayed you can use number_format().

$id = (string) number_format($_GET['id']);
echo $id;