PHP: Should I ever use == over ===?

Question

My understanding for a long time was that basically never to use ==, since it doesn't respect type and can end up causing undesired results.

I just read this post about the general comparison How do the PHP equality (== double equals) and identity (=== triple equals) comparison operators differ?

but wasn't sure if everyone has the same opinion as me.

Here is the scenario which I encountered:

Original code

$state = (intval($state) === TIMESHEET_STATE_UNLOCKED) ? 'unlock' : 'lock';

We had found that this line was invalid, since our constant TIMESHEET_STATE_UNLOCKED was a boolean and $state was the string '0' or '1'. We could fix this in one of two ways:

$state = (intval($state) === intval(TIMESHEET_STATE_UNLOCKED)) ? 'unlock' : 'lock';

OR

$state = ($state == intval(TIMESHEET_STATE_UNLOCKED)) ? 'unlock' : 'lock';

My first inclination was to former but I'm not so sure anymore.

The tradeoffs are adequately explained at the post I just linked. You can decide for yourself. — Robert Harvey, Nov 21 '18 at 19:34
I would rather close it as opinion based. My two cents: use === and explicit cast. — Salman A, Nov 21 '18 at 19:35
If I'm only expecting an alphanumeric outcome, I use ==, but === when I need to make sure types are the same. — Difster, Nov 21 '18 at 19:38

PHP: Should I ever use == over ===?

0 Answers0