problem displaying float

Hi,

I'm having a problem - only on Smarty pages.

The following code:

$fee = 160.44;
$fee2 = $fee + 0; // I have a reason for adding zero;
echo $fee."<br>";
echo $fee2."<br>";
settype($fee, "float");
echo gettype($fee);

gives me

160.44
160.44
float

on a non-Smarty page
and

160.44
160
NULL

when echo'd on a page using a Smarty template.

I've tried using sprintf() with no success.

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?

George in Oxford