Comparison Operators

Comparison operators, as their name implies, allow you to compare two values. You may also be interested in viewing the type comparison tables, as they show examples of various type related comparisons.

Table 14-4. Comparison Operators

ExampleNameResult
$a == $bEqualTRUE if $a is equal to $b.
$a === $bIdentical TRUE if $a is equal to $b, and they are of the same type. (introduced in PHP 4)
$a != $bNot equalTRUE if $a is not equal to $b.
$a <> $bNot equalTRUE if $a is not equal to $b.
$a !== $bNot identical TRUE if $a is not equal to $b, or they are not of the same type. (introduced in PHP 4)
$a < $bLess thanTRUE if $a is strictly less than $b.
$a > $bGreater thanTRUE if $a is strictly greater than $b.
$a <= $bLess than or equal to TRUE if $a is less than or equal to $b.
$a >= $bGreater than or equal to TRUE if $a is greater than or equal to $b.

If you compare an integer with a string, the string is converted to a number. If you compare two numerical strings, they are compared as integers. These rules also apply to the switch statement.

<?php
var_dump
(0 == "a"); // 0 == 0 -> true
var_dump("1" == "01"); // 1 == 1 -> true

switch ("a") {
case
0:
    echo
"0";
    break;
case
"a": // never reached because "a" is already matched with 0
    
echo "a";
    break;
}
?>

Another conditional operator is the "?:" (or ternary) operator.

<?php
// Example usage for: Ternary Operator
$action = (empty($_POST['action'])) ? 'default' : $_POST['action'];

// The above is identical to this if/else statement
if (empty($_POST['action'])) {
    
$action = 'default';
} else {
    
$action = $_POST['action'];
}
?>

The expression (expr1) ? (expr2) : (expr3) evaluates to expr2 if expr1 evaluates to TRUE, and expr3 if expr1 evaluates to FALSE.

See also strcasecmp(), strcmp(), Array operators, and the manual section on Types.