The 3 different equals

Question

You have = the assignment operator, == the 'equal' comparison operator and === the 'identical' comparison operator.

$a = $b     Assign      Sets $a to be equal to $b.
$a == $b    Equal       TRUE if $a is equal to $b.
$a === $b   Identical   TRUE if $a is equal to $b, and they are of the same type. (introduced in PHP 4)

For more info on the need for == and ===, and situations to use each, look at the docs.

• = is the assignment operator
• == is the comparison operator (checks if two variables have equal values)
• === is the identical comparison operator (checks if two variables have equal values and are of the same type).

= assignment operator

== checks if two variables have the same value

=== checks if two variables have the same value AND if their types are the same

The = operator assigns the value to a variable $six = 6; value 6 is assigned to variable $six

== operator check if the value of both variables is equal and mostly used in conditions like if statements

$a = 2;
$b = 2;
if ($a == $b) { 
    echo both variables have the same value; 
}

=== operator similar to == (check if the value equals) and also check if both of same data type

$a = 2;
$b = "2";
if ($a === $b) {
    echo "both variable have same value and of same data type";
} else {
    echo 'both variable is either not equal or not of same data type';
}

// here $a is of type int whereas $b is of type string. So here the output