PHP Comparison Operators: Equal, Identical, Greater

A comparison operator asks a question about two values and answers with true or false. You will use these in every if statement.

Operator	Meaning	Example
`==`	Equal (after type conversion)	`5 == "5"` is `true`
`===`	Identical (same value and type)	`5 === "5"` is `false`
`!=` or `<>`	Not equal	`5 != 6` is `true`
`!==`	Not identical	`5 !== "5"` is `true`
`>`	Greater than	`7 > 3` is `true`
`<`	Less than	`7 < 3` is `false`
`>=`	Greater than or equal	`7 >= 7` is `true`
`<=`	Less than or equal	`3 <= 2` is `false`
`<=>`	Spaceship (compare and return -1, 0 or 1)	`3 <=> 7` is `-1`

index.php

PHP

<?php
var_dump(5 > 3);
var_dump(5 <= 3);
var_dump(5 == "5");
var_dump(5 === "5");

Output

OUTPUT

bool(true)
bool(false)
bool(true)
bool(false)

Comparing text

Strings are compared character by character. Capital letters come before small letters.

index.php

PHP

<?php
var_dump("apple" < "banana");
var_dump("Zebra" < "apple");
var_dump("hello" === "Hello");

Output

OUTPUT

1
2
3

bool(true)
bool(true)
bool(false)

The spaceship operator

<=> returns -1 if the left side is smaller, 0 if they are equal and 1 if the left side is bigger. It is the standard tool for sorting.

index.php

PHP

<?php
echo (3 <=> 7) . "\n";
echo (5 <=> 5) . "\n";
echo (9 <=> 2);

Output

OUTPUT

1
2
3

-1
0
1

Use it for sorting

index.php

PHP

<?php
$people = [
    ["name" => "Zoya", "age" => 30],
    ["name" => "Ali", "age" => 22],
    ["name" => "Mira", "age" => 27],
];

usort($people, fn($a, $b) => $a["age"] <=> $b["age"]);

foreach ($people as $p) {
    echo $p["name"] . " ";
}

Output

OUTPUT

Ali Mira Zoya

lightbulb

Prefer ===

Use === and !== by default. Reach for == only when you really want type conversion. The next lesson shows why.