How to get an integer from MySQL as integer in PHP?

Question

When data is returned from MySQL, it is automatically returned as strings, regardless of the MySQL data type.

Is there any way to tell MySQL/PHP to maintain the data types (e.g. int), so if you query an int column, you get an integer in PHP instead of a string?

Answer 1

Well you can do Type casting to convert the type of returned data using PHP.

You can take a look at int, intval to convert to integers. You may also use settype:

settype($foo, "array");
settype($foo, "bool");
settype($foo, "boolean");
settype($foo, "float");
settype($foo, "int");
settype($foo, "integer");
settype($foo, "null");
settype($foo, "object");
settype($foo, "string");

Another way would be:

$foo = (array)$foo;
$foo = (b)$foo;      // from PHP 5.2.1
$foo = (binary)$foo; // from PHP 5.2.1
$foo = (bool)$foo;
$foo = (boolean)$foo;
$foo = (double)$foo;
$foo = (float)$foo;
$foo = (int)$foo;
$foo = (integer)$foo;
$foo = (object)$foo;
$foo = (real)$foo;
$foo = (string)$foo;

Answer 2

In MySQLi use bind_result: it sets the correct type and handles NULL.

Answer 3

If you are running Ubuntu:

sudo  apt-get remove php5-mysql
sudo  apt-get install php5-mysqlnd
sudo service apache2 restart