Amounts & precision

A minor amount is always a canonical integer string: 0, or an optional minus followed by up to 65 significant digits (Money::MAX_DIGITS) — no plus sign, leading zeros, whitespace, dot or exponent. minor() only ever returns this grammar.

$big = Money::ofMinor('123456789012345678901234567890', 'EUR');

$big->digits();      // 30
$big->fitsInt();     // false
$big->minorInt();    // throws AmountOverflow — no silent (int) path

// Never compare raw minors in PHP: numeric strings go through float above int64
$a->minor() > $b->minor();   // unreliable for large amounts
$a->isGreaterThan($b);       // always exact

Money::ofMinor('007', 'EUR')->minor();   // "7" — normalized on entry
Money::ofMinor('5.0', 'EUR');            // throws InvalidAmount — minors are integers

• Never (int)-cast or PHP-compare raw minors — PHP compares numeric strings through floats above int64. Use the Money comparison methods.
• minorInt() is the only int bridge; it throws AmountOverflow outside int64, and fitsInt() tells you in advance.
• JSON carries minor as a string: a JSON number above 2⁵³ is corrupted by JavaScript.
• Integer inputs are normalized on entry ("007" → "7", "-0" → "0"); "+5", " 5", "5.0" and "5e3" throw InvalidAmount.

Limits

Database columns

$table->money() emits a signed decimal(P, 0) amount column (P = money.schema.precision, default 38) plus a currency column. Decimal gives native numeric ORDER BY, range filters and exact SUM — bigint would bring back the int64 ceiling, and varchar sorts “9” after “10”.

The scale is always 0 — the exponent lives in the currency registry, so one column holds JPY (0), EUR (2) and ETH (18) rows. Lower money.schema.precision to 19 for int64-sized columns; Currency::maxMajorAmount() reports the largest storable major amount:

Currency::of('EUR')->maxMajorAmount(19);   // "99999999999999999.99"