What are the drawbacks of comparing arrays directly in PHP when checking for database entries?

When comparing arrays directly in PHP to check for database entries, the comparison may not work as expected due to differences in array order or structure. To accurately compare arrays, you should first serialize the arrays into strings and then compare the serialized strings.

// Sample code to compare arrays by serializing them first
$array1 = [1, 2, 3];
$array2 = [2, 3, 1];

if (serialize($array1) === serialize($array2)) {
    echo "Arrays are equal.";
} else {
    echo "Arrays are not equal.";
}