PHP warning: Division by zero

A division-by-zero error will occur in PHP if:

• The variable you’re dividing by (the divisor) has been set to zero.
• The divisor has been set to null.
• The variable does not exist. i.e., it has not been created yet.

The following example code will reproduce the error:

$var = 0;
echo 12 / $var;

If you run the code above, you will experience a “Warning: Division by zero” warning. In newer versions of PHP, the script will throw a fatal DivisionByZeroError exception.

This is because the $var variable has been set to 0.

Performing a basic check can prevent this issue. For example, you can wrap your division arithmetic inside an IF statement:

$var = 0;
if($var > 0){
    echo 12 / $var;
}

The code above is pretty simple. Basically, we make sure that the variable (in this case, our divisor) is greater than 0 before we attempt our division calculation.

It is worth noting that older versions of PHP will continue to execute if a division error is encountered. This may lead to incorrect calculations.

However, newer versions of PHP will throw a DivisionByZeroError exception.