How to Output Ordinal Numbers with Laravel

Ordinal numbers in Laravel¶

Pretty simply, use the new Number helper and the ordinal method. Here's an example:

dd("You're ranked " . Number::ordinal(1));

This will output:

You're ranked 1st

Of course, this works the same with any number — just pass it into ordinal, and Laravel will do the rest.

Spelling ordinal numbers¶

Even more recently, you can now spell ordinal numbers with the Number helper.

Instead of 1st, we can output first. To do this, use the spellOrdinal method:

dd(Number::spellOrdinal(2)); // second
dd(Number::spellOrdinal(50)); // fiftieth

This is useful, of course, if you need a text-based representation of an ordinal number.

Behind the scenes¶

At first glance, it may seem that there's a ton of custom functionality behind these methods.

However, PHP already has this functionality built-in. Laravel is utilising these methods to make it more convenient and cleaner.

Here's what the ordinal method looks like behind the scenes:

public static function ordinal(int|float $number, ?string $locale = null)
{
    static::ensureIntlExtensionIsInstalled();

    $formatter = new NumberFormatter($locale ?? static::$locale, NumberFormatter::ORDINAL);

    return $formatter->format($number);
}

So, the Number helper is simply using the built-in PHP NumberFormatter class, taking in the locale (which you can specify) and formatting the number.

I'm sure you'll agree that using the Number helper for ordinal methods is a lot cleaner than the NumberFormatter method!