What potential pitfalls should beginners be aware of when working with mathematical calculations in PHP?

One potential pitfall for beginners when working with mathematical calculations in PHP is the issue of data type conversion. PHP will automatically convert data types when performing calculations, which can lead to unexpected results. To avoid this, it's important to explicitly cast variables to the desired data type before performing mathematical operations. 

// Example of explicitly casting variables to avoid data type conversion issues
$num1 = 10;
$num2 = "5";

// Cast $num2 to an integer before performing addition
$result = $num1 + (int)$num2;

echo $result; // Output: 15

Keywords

floating point precision type juggling division by zero round-off errors overflow

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