Comparing two identical strings returns false in PHP

Question

I'm trying to compare two strings. When I echo them, they appear to be identical, yet when I compare them with the '==' operator, it returns false. For example, when running the code below on my database. It outputs things like "APPARENTLY Apple does not equal Apple". What is the reason?

if ($this->data['list_text']) { // The user has entered into textarea

    $list = nl2br($this->data['list_text']);

    $list_array = explode('<br />', $list);

    $ranking = 1;
    $company_array = $this->CompanyList->CompanyRanking->Company->find('list', null);

    // This is the comparison bit
    foreach ($list_array as $key => $value) {
        $companyId = null;
        foreach ($company_array as $key2 => $value2) {
            if ($value2 != $value) {
                echo 'APPARENTLY ' . $value2 . ' does not equal ' . $value;
            } else {
                $companyId = $key2;
                break;
            }
        }

        $this->data['CompanyRanking'][$ranking]['ranking'] = $ranking;
        $this->data['CompanyRanking'][$ranking]['company_id'] = $companyId;
        $ranking++;
    }
}

Answer 1

Try var_dump() instead of echo.

echo 'APPARENTLY '.$value2.' does not equal '.$value;   
echo '<pre>Debug: ';
echo 'value='; var_dump($value);
echo 'value2='; var_dump($value2);
echo '</pre>';

It provides additional information. E.g. the actual type. And the length of strings.