What are the best practices for avoiding unexpected results in PHP comparisons?

When comparing values in PHP, unexpected results can occur due to type juggling. To avoid this, it is recommended to use strict comparison operators (=== and !==) instead of loose comparison operators (== and !=). Strict comparison operators not only compare the values but also the types of the operands. Example: 

$value1 = 5;
$value2 = '5';

// Loose comparison
if ($value1 == $value2) {
    echo "Loose comparison: Equal";
} else {
    echo "Loose comparison: Not Equal";
}

// Strict comparison
if ($value1 === $value2) {
    echo "Strict comparison: Equal";
} else {
    echo "Strict comparison: Not Equal";
}

Keywords

type juggling strict comparison === operator data types coercion

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