Floating point values have a limited precision. Hence a value might
not have the same string representation after any processing. That also
includes writing a floating point value in your script and directly
printing it without any mathematical operations.

If you would like to know more about "floats" and what IEEE
754 is, read this:
http://www.floating-point-gui.de/

Thank you for your interest in PHP.

Thanks for responding! I appreciate that. However, I do find it strange that this provides different results:

var_export(440.0);
print PHP_EOL;
var_export((float) "440.0");
print PHP_EOL;
var_export("44.0" * 10);
print PHP_EOL;
var_export("0.44" * 1000);
print PHP_EOL;
var_export("4.4" * 100);
print PHP_EOL;
var_export("4.400000" * 100);
print PHP_EOL;

This prints

440.0
440.0
440.0
440.0
440.00000000000006
440.00000000000006

And speaking about string representation. I do not know the internals of php at all, but for all of the above, using other functions like print_r, var_dump and so on - even casting them to string, produces the same result for all of the floats.

And to add to this, replacing the float 440.0 with something else. Say 666.0. Produces the expected output.

Just wanted to add this to the conversation. I am not well enough versed in internals and floating points to say if the above is also expected, so feel free to keep as "Not a bug" if it fits the description well :)

It isn't a matter of PHP's internals: this awkwardness with floating-point (non-integer) values exists in basically every programming language. Yes, you get different results with different operations and numbers. That's just how it is.

If you missed it, the answer is typically to round() your result to one or two more decimal places than you care about

  $var = round("4.400000" * 100, 3);

and/or to edit the assorted "precision" php.ini settings.