Detecting negative numbers

Question

I was wondering if there is any way to detect if a number is negative in PHP?

I have the following code:

$profitloss = $result->date_sold_price - $result->date_bought_price;

I need to find out if $profitloss is negative and if it is, I need to echo out that it is.

Answer 1

I believe this is what you were looking for:

class Expression {
    protected $expression;
    protected $result;

    public function __construct($expression) {
        $this->expression = $expression;
    }

    public function evaluate() {
        $this->result = eval("return ".$this->expression.";");
        return $this;
    }

    public function getResult() {
        return $this->result;
    }
}

class NegativeFinder {
    protected $expressionObj;

    public function __construct(Expression $expressionObj) {
        $this->expressionObj = $expressionObj;
    }

    public function isItNegative() {
        $result = $this->expressionObj->evaluate()->getResult();

        if($this->hasMinusSign($result)) {
            return true;
        } else {
            return false;
        }
    }

    protected function hasMinusSign($value) {
        return (substr(strval($value), 0, 1) == "-");
    }
}

Usage:

$soldPrice = 1;
$boughtPrice = 2;
$negativeFinderObj = new NegativeFinder(new Expression("$soldPrice - $boughtPrice"));

echo ($negativeFinderObj->isItNegative()) ? "It is negative!" : "It is not negative :(";

Do however note that eval is a dangerous function, therefore use it only if you really, really need to find out if a number is negative.

:-)