How can the efficiency and accuracy of string searching and comparison in PHP be improved when dealing with numerical values?

When dealing with numerical values in string searching and comparison in PHP, it is important to convert the strings to numerical values before performing any operations. This can improve efficiency and accuracy by ensuring that comparisons are done on numerical values rather than strings. One way to achieve this is by using functions like intval() or floatval() to convert the strings to integers or floats, respectively.

// Example code snippet to improve efficiency and accuracy of string searching and comparison with numerical values

$string1 = "123";
$string2 = "456";

// Convert strings to numerical values
$num1 = intval($string1);
$num2 = intval($string2);

// Perform comparison on numerical values
if ($num1 > $num2) {
    echo "String 1 is greater than String 2";
} elseif ($num1 < $num2) {
    echo "String 1 is less than String 2";
} else {
    echo "String 1 is equal to String 2";
}