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PHP: If Number Negative Then Make Zero

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Category: Tips & Tutorials

In PHP, checking if a integer is negative and if it is then setting it to zero is easy, but I was looking for something shorter (and potentially faster) than:

if ($x < 0) $x = 0;

Well, this is a very quick check and reset, but there is a function max that does this too and it works with arrays too.

$x = max(0, $x); // $x will be set to 0 if it was less than 0

The max() function returns the number with the highest value of two specified numbers.

echo max(1, 3, 5, 6, 7); // 7
echo max(array(2, 4, 5)); // 5
echo max(0, 'hello'); // 0
echo max('hello', 0); // hello
echo max(-1, 'hello'); // hello

// With multiple arrays, max compares from left to right
// so in our example: 2 == 2, but 4 < 5
$val = max(array(2, 4, 8), array(2, 5, 7)); // array(2, 5, 7)

// If both an array and non-array are given, the array
// is always returned as it's seen as the largest
$val = max('string', array(2, 5, 7), 42); // array(2, 5, 7)

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