In PHP, what are the best practices for handling different types of comparison operators in conditional statements to ensure accurate results?

When comparing different types of data in PHP, it's important to use strict comparison operators (=== and !==) to ensure accurate results. These operators not only compare the values of variables but also their data types. This helps avoid unexpected behavior that can occur with loose comparison operators (== and !=) when comparing variables of different types.

// Example of using strict comparison operators to ensure accurate results
$value1 = 5; // integer
$value2 = "5"; // string

if ($value1 === $value2) {
    echo "The values are equal and of the same type.";
} else {
    echo "The values are not equal or of different types.";
}