What does a simple IF always return true?

Question

Why does the following code always return true?

<?php
$v = "dav6d";
if($v = "david") {
echo "smith";
}
?>

Answer 1

This line:

if($v = "david") {

is using an assignment (i.e. a single = sign) which will return the result of $v, "david", which is a truthy value. If you want to do a comparison use == or ===