How can a better understanding of computer science fundamentals help in avoiding errors related to floating point arithmetic in PHP?

Understanding computer science fundamentals, specifically how floating point arithmetic works, can help in avoiding errors related to precision and rounding in PHP. By knowing how floating point numbers are represented in binary and how they can lead to rounding errors, developers can write more robust code that accounts for these issues. 

// Avoiding floating point arithmetic errors by using integer arithmetic
$price = 10; // $10
$tax_rate = 0.085; // 8.5%
$total_price = $price + ($price * $tax_rate);
$total_price = round($total_price, 2); // Round to 2 decimal places
echo "Total price: $" . number_format($total_price, 2);

Keywords

floating point arithmetic computer science fundamentals precision PHP errors data types

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