PHP convert decimal into fraction and back?

Question

I want the user to be able to type in a fraction like:

 1/2
 2 1/4
 3

And convert it into its corresponding decimal, to be saved in MySQL, that way I can order by it and do other comparisons to it.

But I need to be able to convert the decimal back to a fraction when showing to the user

so basically I need a function that will convert fraction string to decimal:

fraction_to_decimal("2 1/4");// return 2.25

and a function that can convert a decimal to a faction string:

decimal_to_fraction(.5); // return "1/2"

How can I do this?

Answer 1

Sometimes you need to find a way to do it and rounding is acceptable. So if you decide what range of rounding works out for you you can build a function like this. To convert a decimal into the fraction that it most closely matches. You can extend the accuracy by adding more denominators to be tested.

function decToFraction($float) {
    // 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/3 ,2/3, 3/4, 3/8, 5/8, 7/8, 3/16, 5/16, 7/16,
    // 9/16, 11/16, 13/16, 15/16
    $whole = floor ( $float );
    $decimal = $float - $whole;
    $leastCommonDenom = 48; // 16 * 3;
    $denominators = array (2, 3, 4, 8, 16, 24, 48 );
    $roundedDecimal = round ( $decimal * $leastCommonDenom ) / $leastCommonDenom;
    if ($roundedDecimal == 0)
        return $whole;
    if ($roundedDecimal == 1)
        return $whole + 1;
    foreach ( $denominators as $d ) {
        if ($roundedDecimal * $d == floor ( $roundedDecimal * $d )) {
            $denom = $d;
            break;
        }
    }
    return ($whole == 0 ? '' : $whole) . " " . ($roundedDecimal * $denom) . "/" . $denom;
}

Answer 2

I think I'd store the string representation too, as, once you run the math, you're not getting it back!

And, here's a quick-n-dirty compute function, no guarantees:

$input = '1 1/2';
$fraction = array('whole' => 0);
preg_match('/^((?P<whole>\d+)(?=\s))?(\s*)?(?P<numerator>\d+)\/(?P<denominator>\d+)$/', $input, $fraction);
$result = $fraction['whole'] + $fraction['numerator']/$fraction['denominator'];
print_r($result);die;

Oh, for completeness, add a check to make sure $fraction['denominator'] != 0.

Answer 3

To can use PEAR's Math_Fraction class for some of your needs

<?php

include "Math/Fraction.php";

$fr = new Math_Fraction(1,2);


// print as a string
// output: 1/2
echo $fr->toString();

// print as float
// output: 0.5
echo $fr->toFloat();

?>

Answer 4

Here is a solution that first determines a valid fraction (although not necessarily the simplest fraction). So 0.05 -> 5/100. It then determines the greatest common divisor of the numerator and denominator to reduce it down to the simplest fraction, 1/20.

function decimal_to_fraction($fraction) {
  $base = floor($fraction);
  $fraction -= $base;
  if( $fraction == 0 ) return $base;
  list($ignore, $numerator) = preg_split('/\./', $fraction, 2);
  $denominator = pow(10, strlen($numerator));
  $gcd = gcd($numerator, $denominator);
  $fraction = ($numerator / $gcd) . '/' . ($denominator / $gcd);
  if( $base > 0 ) {
    return $base . ' ' . $fraction;
  } else {
    return $fraction;
  }
}

# Borrowed from: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.gmp-gcd.php#69189
function gcd($a,$b) {
  return ($a % $b) ? gcd($b,$a % $b) : $b;
}

This includes a pure PHP implementation of the gcd although if you are sure the gmp module is installed you could use the one that comes with gcd.

As many others have noted you need to use rational numbers. So if you convert 1/7 to a decimal then try to convert it back to a decimal you will be out of luck because the precision lost will prevent it from getting back to 1/7. For my purposes this is acceptable since all the numbers I am dealing with (standard measurements) are rational numbers anyway.