The PHP Function BCMath

The php function bcadd is one of the bcmath functions that allows you to perform arbitrary precision arithmetic. These functions are important because they allow you to handle numbers that exceed the range of native numeric types in PHP. Moreover, these functions are useful because they can help you to avoid inaccuracies in money transactions.

The bcadd() function adds two arbitrary precision numbers. The second argument, which is optional, determines the number of digits after the decimal point in the result. The default value is 0.

Note that you can also use bcmath functions with floating point numbers, but you may lose some precision when the floats are converted to strings. The conversion to string uses a full stop instead of the localized decimal separator, which may result in some erroneous results.

Another useful bcmath function is bcsub(), which subtracts two arbitrary precision numbers. The third argument is optional and determines the number of digits after a decimal point in the result. The default is 0.

BCMath also includes other arithmetic and string functions, such as bcmul(), bcdiv(), bcpowmod(), and bcsqrt(). All of these functions allow you to operate on arbitrary precision numbers, which is a necessity when working with large numbers.

If you want to access a value or memory-space both inside and outside of a function, the global keyword can be used. However, this is not recommended. Functions and methods in PHP have different scoping rules, so using the global keyword will cause the same variable to exist in both places.