How do the PHP equality (== double equals) and ide

Question

What is the difference between == and ===?

• How exactly does the loosely == comparison work?
• How exactly does the strict === comparison work?

What would be some useful examples?

Answer 1

In short, === works in the same manner that == does in most other programming languages.

PHP allows you to make comparisons that don't really make sense. Example:

$y = "wauv";
$x = false;
if ($x == $y)
    ...

While this allows for some interesting "shortcuts" you should beware since a function that returns something it shouldn't (like "error" instead of a number) will not get caught, and you will be left wondering what happened.

In PHP, == compares values and performs type conversion if necessary (for instance, the string "12343sdfjskfjds" will become "12343" in an integer comparison). === will compare the value AND type and will return false if the type is not the same.

If you look in the PHP manual, you will see that a lot of functions return "false" if the function fails, but they might return 0 in a successful scenario, which is why they recommend doing "if (function() !== false)" to avoid mistakes.

Answer 2

PHP is a loosely typed language. Using the double equal operator allows for a loose checking of a variable.

Loosely checking a value would allow for some similar, but not equal, values to equate as the same:

• ''
• null
• false
• 0

All of these values would equate as equal using the double equal operator.

Answer 3

The === operator is supposed to compare exact content equality while the == operator would compare semantic equality. In particular it will coerce strings to numbers.

Equality is a vast subject. See the Wikipedia article on equality.

Answer 4

There are two differences between == and === in PHP arrays and objects that I think didn't mention here; two arrays with different key sorts, and objects.

Two arrays with different key sorts

If you have an array with a key sort and another array with a different key sort, they are strictly different (i.e. using ===). That may cause if you key-sort an array, and try to compare the sorted array with the original one.

For instance, consider an empty array. First, we try to push some new indexes to the array without any special sort. A good example would be an array with strings as keys. Now deep into an example:

// Define an array
$arr = [];

// Adding unsorted keys
$arr["I"] = "we";
$arr["you"] = "you";
$arr["he"] = "they";

Now, we have a not-sorted-keys array (e.g., 'he' came after 'you'). Consider the same array, but we sorted its keys alphabetically:

// Declare array
$alphabetArr = [];

// Adding alphabetical-sorted keys
$alphabetArr["I"] = "we";
$alphabetArr["he"] = "they";
$alphabetArr["you"] = "you";

Tip: You can sort an array by key using ksort() function.

Now you have another array with a different key sort from the first one. So, we're going to compare them:

$arr == $alphabetArr; // true
$arr === $alphabetArr; // false

Note: It may be obvious, but comparing two different arrays using strict comparison always results false. However, two arbitrary arrays may be equal using === or not.

You would say: "This difference is negligible". Then I say it's a difference and should be considered and may happen anytime. As mentioned above, sorting keys in an array is a good example of that.

Objects

Keep in mind, two different objects are never strict-equal. These examples would help:

$stdClass1 = new stdClass();
$stdClass2 = new stdClass();
$clonedStdClass1 = clone $stdClass1;

// Comparing
$stdClass1 == $stdClass2; // true
$stdClass1 === $stdClass2; // false
$stdClass1 == $clonedStdClass1; // true
$stdClass1 === $clonedStdClass1; // false

Note: Assigning an object to another variable does not create a copy - rather, it creates a reference to the same memory location as the object. See here.

Note: As of PHP7, anonymous classes was added. From the results, there is no difference between new class {} and new stdClass() in the tests above.

Answer 5

<?php

    /**
     * Comparison of two PHP objects                         ==     ===
     * Checks for
     * 1. References                                         yes    yes
     * 2. Instances with matching attributes and its values  yes    no
     * 3. Instances with different attributes                yes    no
     **/

    // There is no need to worry about comparing visibility of property or
    // method, because it will be the same whenever an object instance is
    // created, however visibility of an object can be modified during run
    // time using ReflectionClass()
    // http://php.net/manual/en/reflectionproperty.setaccessible.php
    //
    class Foo
    {
        public $foobar = 1;

        public function createNewProperty($name, $value)
        {
            $this->{$name} = $value;
        }
    }

    class Bar
    {
    }
    // 1. Object handles or references
    // Is an object a reference to itself or a clone or totally a different object?
    //
    //   ==  true   Name of two objects are same, for example, Foo() and Foo()
    //   ==  false  Name of two objects are different, for example, Foo() and Bar()
    //   === true   ID of two objects are same, for example, 1 and 1
    //   === false  ID of two objects are different, for example, 1 and 2

    echo "1. Object handles or references (both == and    ===) <br />";

    $bar = new Foo();    // New object Foo() created
    $bar2 = new Foo();   // New object Foo() created
    $baz = clone $bar;   // Object Foo() cloned
    $qux = $bar;         // Object Foo() referenced
    $norf = new Bar();   // New object Bar() created
    echo "bar";
    var_dump($bar);
    echo "baz";
    var_dump($baz);
    echo "qux";
    var_dump($qux);
    echo "bar2";
    var_dump($bar2);
    echo "norf";
    var_dump($norf);

    // Clone: == true and === false
    echo '$bar == $bar2';
    var_dump($bar == $bar2); // true

    echo '$bar === $bar2';
    var_dump($bar === $bar2); // false

    echo '$bar == $baz';
    var_dump($bar == $baz); // true

    echo '$bar === $baz';
    var_dump($bar === $baz); // false

    // Object reference: == true and === true
    echo '$bar == $qux';
    var_dump($bar == $qux); // true

    echo '$bar === $qux';
    var_dump($bar === $qux); // true

    // Two different objects: == false and === false
    echo '$bar == $norf';
    var_dump($bar == $norf); // false

    echo '$bar === $norf';
    var_dump($bar === $norf); // false

    // 2. Instances with matching attributes and its values (only ==).
    //    What happens when objects (even in cloned object) have same
    //    attributes but varying values?

    // $foobar value is different
    echo "2. Instances with matching attributes  and its values (only ==) <br />";

    $baz->foobar = 2;
    echo '$foobar' . " value is different <br />";
    echo '$bar->foobar = ' . $bar->foobar . "<br />";
    echo '$baz->foobar = ' . $baz->foobar . "<br />";
    echo '$bar == $baz';
    var_dump($bar == $baz); // false

    // $foobar's value is the same again
    $baz->foobar = 1;
    echo '$foobar' . " value is the same again <br />";
    echo '$bar->foobar is ' . $bar->foobar . "<br />";
    echo '$baz->foobar is ' . $baz->foobar . "<br />";
    echo '$bar == $baz';
    var_dump($bar == $baz); // true

    // Changing values of properties in $qux object will change the property
    // value of $bar and evaluates true always, because $qux = &$bar.
    $qux->foobar = 2;
    echo '$foobar value of both $qux and $bar is 2, because $qux = &$bar' . "<br />";
    echo '$qux->foobar is ' . $qux->foobar . "<br />";
    echo '$bar->foobar is ' . $bar->foobar . "<br />";
    echo '$bar == $qux';
    var_dump($bar == $qux); // true

    // 3. Instances with different attributes (only ==)
    //    What happens when objects have different attributes even though
    //    one of the attributes has same value?
    echo "3. Instances with different attributes (only ==) <br />";

    // Dynamically create a property with the name in $name and value
    // in $value for baz object
    $name = 'newproperty';
    $value = null;
    $baz->createNewProperty($name, $value);
    echo '$baz->newproperty is ' . $baz->{$name};
    var_dump($baz);

    $baz->foobar = 2;
    echo '$foobar' . " value is same again <br />";
    echo '$bar->foobar is ' . $bar->foobar . "<br />";
    echo '$baz->foobar is ' . $baz->foobar . "<br />";
    echo '$bar == $baz';
    var_dump($bar == $baz); // false
    var_dump($bar);
    var_dump($baz);
?>

Answer 6

Few of the examples

var_dump(5 == 5);    // True
var_dump(5 == "5");  // True because == checks only same value not type
var_dump(5 === 5);   // True
var_dump(5 === "5"); // False because value are same but data type are different.

P.S.

== Compares the value only, it won't bother about the data types

vs.

=== Compares the values and data types