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 10-4. 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. (PHP 4 only)
$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. (PHP 4 only)
$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.

Another conditional operator is the "?:" (or ternary) operator, which operates as in C and many other languages.

<?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(), and the manual section on Types.