PHP's <> operator

Question

What does the <> operator mean exactly?

Is it the same as != (not equal)?

Sample code

$foo = 'text';

if ($foo <> 'photo') {
    echo 'foo';
}
else {
    echo 'bar';
}

Redefines the meaning of "exact duplicate" when the other question is also asked by the same person. — Kzqai, Jul 23 '12 at 15:34

score 13 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 09 '16 at 14:20

13

As NikiC notes, <> and != are the same and have the same precedence. My earlier answer was based on what appears to be a bug in the documentation which has now been corrected.

edited Jan 09 '16 at 14:20

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 26 '09 at 06:50

Zoredache

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This is actually not true. `<>` has the same precedence as `!=`. They even share the same token, so they are absolutely identical from the parser's point of view. Proof: http://lxr.php.net/xref/PHP_TRUNK/Zend/zend_language_scanner.l#1364 – NikiC Sep 12 '12 at 17:55
@NikiC, You are right. There appears to have been a bug in the documentation, which I was using as my reference. The bug was corrected on Jul 17 2012. See: http://svn.php.net/viewvc/phpdoc/en/trunk/language/operators.xml?view=log and `svn diff --force -r 326293:326667 https://svn.php.net/repository/phpdoc/en/trunk/language/operators.xml` – Zoredache Sep 12 '12 at 19:08
I already suspected that this was the case. Thanks for fixing up the answer :) – NikiC Sep 12 '12 at 21:17

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 09 '16 at 14:21

3

That would be correct. It's pretty universal between languages. I usually use that method in my SQL Server queries/stored procedures.

PHP: Comparison Operators

edited Jan 09 '16 at 14:21

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 26 '09 at 06:44

William Holroyd

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score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 09 '16 at 14:20

1

Yes, it's the same as != (see the manual).

edited Jan 09 '16 at 14:20

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 26 '09 at 06:42

Henrik Paul

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PHP's <> operator

Sample code

3 Answers3

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