What are the best practices for handling and formatting numerical values in PHP to prevent inaccuracies in calculations?

When working with numerical values in PHP, it is important to handle and format them properly to prevent inaccuracies in calculations. One common issue is the floating-point precision problem, where calculations with floating-point numbers may result in small inaccuracies due to the way computers represent these numbers. To avoid this, it is recommended to use PHP's built-in functions like number_format() to format numerical values for display and round() to round numbers to a specific precision.

// Example of handling and formatting numerical values in PHP to prevent inaccuracies in calculations

// Define the numerical value
$number = 10.555;

// Round the number to 2 decimal places
$rounded_number = round($number, 2);

// Format the number with 2 decimal places for display
$formatted_number = number_format($number, 2);

// Output the results
echo "Original Number: " . $number . "\n";
echo "Rounded Number: " . $rounded_number . "\n";
echo "Formatted Number: " . $formatted_number;