Hi Crosh,
I was just pointing out to the OP that coding in a multiplier of 100 wouldn't work in all cases. I wasn't 100% sure what he wanted either so was trying to suggest something a bit more general - hence my use of floor and log10 which might be not necessary (as you said) 
What you mean is PHP is a "non-typed" language
I was probably looking for that term, or "dynamic typing" perhaps. Not sure where in my sleepy head "variable type" came from. 
I'm not much of a fan of variants either as it happens. You know where you stand with strongly typed variables and having to explicitly cast from one type to another.