- 01Getting Started
- 02Your First Output (echo)
- 03Working with Variables
- 04Conditionals (if statements)
- 05Loops (for statements)
- 06Writing a Function
- 07Working with Arrays
- 08Loops (while statements)
- 09Classes (Object-Oriented Programming)
- 10Error Handling (try...catch)
- 11Handy Array Functions
- 12Recursive Functions
- 13Using the Standard Library
- 14The switch Statement
- 15The Ternary Operator
- 16Inheritance (Extending a Class)
- 17Writing Comments
- 18Logical Operators (AND, OR, NOT)
- 19Constants (define / const)
- 20Splitting and Joining Strings (explode, implode)
- 21Writing Null-Safe Code (the ?? operator)
- 22Searching an Array (in_array)
- 23Transforming an Array (array_map)
- 24Two-Dimensional Arrays (Tabular Data)
- 25Writing a Custom Exception Class
- 26Default Parameter Values
- 27Using an Array as a Set (Duplicate-Free Data)
- 28Checking Correctness (Your First Step into Testing)
- 29Higher-Order Functions (Passing a Function as an Argument)
- 30Stacks and Queues (Basic Data Structures)
- 31Type Conversion (Casting) Basics
- 32Intro to Regular Expressions (Pattern Matching)
- 33The Binary Search Algorithm
- 34Building a Caesar Cipher (a Character-Shifting Cipher)
- 35Understanding How Bubble Sort Works
- 36Building and Displaying Dates (Basic Year/Month/Day Operations)
- 37Writing Multiple Test Cases Together
- 38Speeding Up Calculations with Memoization (Caching)
- 39Normalizing Strings (trim, Unifying Case)
- 40Shallow Copy vs. Deep Copy
- 41Enum (Enumerated Types) Basics
- 42Flattening an Array
- 43Reversing a String and Checking for Palindromes
- 44Pairing Up Two Arrays (the zip operation)
- 45Rounding Numbers (floor, ceil, round)
- 46Multi-Line Strings (Heredoc)
- 47Functions That Return Multiple Values (Arrays and list())
- 48Finding the GCD and LCM (the Euclidean Algorithm)
- 49Formatting Numbers (Padding Digits, Decimal Places)
- 50Cleanup Logic with try/catch/finally
- 51Functions That Work with Any Type
- 52File Reading and Writing Basics
- 53Generating Random Numbers
- 54Bitwise Operators (AND, OR, XOR, shifts)
- 55Reading Command-Line Arguments
- 56Waiting for a Fixed Amount of Time (sleep)
- 57Watch Out for Floating-Point Rounding Errors
- 58Reading from Standard Input
- 59FizzBuzz (the Classic Practice Problem)
- 60Checking Whether a Number Is Prime
- 61Set Operations with Arrays (Union, Intersection, Difference)
- 62Converting Number Bases (Binary, Hex)
- 63Checking Balanced Parentheses (an Application of Stacks)
- 64Checking Whether Two Words Are Anagrams
- 65Checking Whether a Year Is a Leap Year
- 66Converting Temperature (Celsius to Fahrenheit)
- 67Prime Factorization
- 68[Applied] Build a Simple Inventory Management Tool
Formatting Numbers (Padding Digits, Decimal Places)
In this lesson you will learn to format numbers with number_format so amounts and sequential file names display neatly. This is for anyone searching for "PHP number_format how to use".
number_format() fixes the number of decimal places and adds thousands separators automatically. str_pad() pads the front of a number with zeros to a fixed width. Raw calculation results have wildly varying widths, so applying this kind of formatting right before display is standard practice.
The sample code produces an amount with two decimal places and a thousands separator using number_format($price, 2), and a zero-padded three-digit sequence number with str_pad($num, 3, "0", STR_PAD_LEFT).
A common stumbling block for beginners is forgetting str_pad()'s fourth argument (STR_PAD_LEFT). Leave it out and the padding goes on the right by default, which is not the zero-padding you wanted.
number_format's thousands separators are exactly what price displays need, which makes it a workhorse in practice - product prices on e-commerce sites, totals on receipts, and much more.
๐งช This site can't compile or run PHP directly, so it checks on the spot whether what you typed matches the reference code (scoring happens entirely in your browser โ nothing is sent anywhere).