Parsing very very tiny float.

[gmponos]

Hello there....

I have an external API that executes some calculations and returns a result as a report. One of these results happened to be an amount that was a very very tiny one. 2.8865798640254e-15

My code that consumes the API parses this value to a Money object automatically by doing:

$money = $parser->parse((string)$amount, $currency);

I know that there is no actual currency that could represent a so tiny amount and it is practically zero (maybe in some bitcoins it have some value).

So the code above throws exception because the value is converted to a string in this form: 2.8865798640254e-15 and this does not pass the expression inside the DecimalParser. For now in order to stop getting exception I had to do a quick solution to round the number to 7 decimals and then pass it inside the parser and it feels kinda hackish.

As a better solution I could create something like a ExponentialParser and pass it inside an AggregateParser but before going into that I felt that I should ask if you believe that this should be handled by the DecimalParser and not by a different parser...

If yes maybe I could implement the changes on this PR.

For my case above I have added a test case to check it.

[frederikbosch]

@gmponos I have some questions before coming to a solution.

1. What does that API return: a string with lots of fractional numbers or a really exponential floating point?
2. How is that number represented in PHP: a float or a string?
3. If it is a float, is it bigger than the constant PHP_FLOAT_MAX (constant available since PHP 7.2)?

And maybe you can try this one in the meanwhile.

use Money\Number;
$money = $parser->parse((string)Number::fromNumber($amount), $currency);

[gmponos]

Hello, basically most of the questions can be answered through the test case that I have added.

On the test case I just simulated the same thing as my App is doing but let's take it from the top and answer your questions just to be specific here:

1. It returns it as exponential.
2. it is represented as a float. check the test.
3. I guess not because PHP_FLOAT_MIN is 2.2250738585072e-308 and I just have e-15

I will give a try to the Number but never the less should this be inside the DecimalParser?

[gmponos]

Any idea how this should be handled after all?

[frederikbosch]

Closed in favour of #520.