Php mysql math error when using format(somenumber,2)

Question

osx 10.5.2, php 5.2.5, mysql 5.0.51 (standard leopard desktop os install)
Select format(myField,2) as someNumber from myTable ...
returns data i would expect, formatted as you would expect.
while looping through the data returned i am calculating a running total.
for numeric values less than 1,000 results are expected. for numbers gt 1000, php seems to want to truncate the value at the comma. 1,111.11 evaluates to 1; 25,000 evaluates to 25.
If you remove the format() from the sql statement everything works the way you would expect.
wrapping the value returned in a floatval() had no effect.
I am posting this on the apple site rather than php/mysql forums on the off chance that this is a mac centric issue. googling the obvious combinations wasn't productive.

Answer 1

Sounds like a locale issue.
Many international formats use comma as the decimal separator, not the thousands.
There are many levels where this could be set. It could be an OS setting (you don't say where you or, or the locale information of your machine (System Preferences -> International -> Format). It could be in PHP (see: http://www.php.net/setlocale ), or it could be in the database (data could be written in a comma-based table).
It will take a little research to work out where your specific problem lies.