-$a

Negative Number Conversion

When using the - operator in front of a variable, that variable will be cast to a number and it's sign will be inverted.

Tags
$a = '1';
$a = -$a; // -1

$b = '1.2';
$b = -$b; // -1.2

$c = -4;
$c = -$c; // 4

 1.0+

null coalescing