How is this? I modified what Zeev said a wee bit:
== is a 'loose' comparison operator [1].
In most cases, this is more convenient - the operator does the right thing
without needing any coaxing. In some cases, things will happen that are
confusing - particularly when comparing values that have leading zeros (0)
or when comparing very long numbers that are inside a string.
The basic rule to follow is this:
Character-by-character comparison is performed only if both arguments are
strings and at least one of the strings does not look like a number [2].
Another way to state this rule is:
- If at least one of the arguments is not a string, a numeric comparison is
made.
- If both arguments are strings, but both of them look like numbers, a
numeric comparison is made.
- If both arguments are strings (and at least one of them doesn't look like
a number), a string comparison is made.
[1] If you need to perform an exact comparison between two values, take a
look at the 'strict' comparison operator (===) and the strcmp() function.
[2] See the manual section on types and strings to learn what rules PHP
follows for recognising numbers within strings.
(Thanks to Zeev for clarifying this issue.)
--zak
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