What potential pitfalls should be avoided when using IF statements in PHP to compare strings?

When using IF statements in PHP to compare strings, it's important to avoid potential pitfalls related to case sensitivity and whitespace. To prevent issues, it's recommended to use functions like strtolower() or trim() to standardize the strings before comparison. This ensures that the comparison is accurate regardless of the case or extra whitespace in the strings. 

$string1 = "Hello";
$string2 = "  hello ";

if (strtolower(trim($string1)) === strtolower(trim($string2))) {
    echo "The strings are equal.";
} else {
    echo "The strings are not equal.";
}

Keywords

PHP IF statements string comparison type juggling strict comparison

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