Comparison Operators in PHP

You saw in the last section how to test what is inside of a variable. You used if, else … if, and else. You used the double equals sign (==) to test whether the variable was the same thing as some direct text. The double equals sign is known as a Comparison Operator. There a few more of these “operands” to get used. Here’s a list. Take a look, and then we’ll see a few examples of how to use them.

Operand Example Meaning
== $variable1 == $variable2 Has the same value as

!= $variable1 != $variable2 Does NOT have the same value as
< $variable1 < $variable2 Less Than
> $variable1 > $variable2 Greater Than
<= $variable1 <= $variable2 Less than or equals to
>= $variable1 >= $variable2 Greater than or equals to


Here's some more information on the above Operands.

= = (Has the same value as)
The double equals sign can mean “Has a value of” or "Has the same value as”. In the example below, the variable called $variable1 is being compared to the variable called $variable2

if ($variable1 == $variable2) {
}

!= (Does NOT have the same value as)
You can also test if one condition is NOT the same as another. In which case, you need the exclamation mark/equals sign combination ( != ). If you were testing for a genuine username, for example, you could say:

if ($what_user_entered != $username) {
print("You're not a valid user of this site!")
}

The above code says, “If what the user entered is NOT the same as the value in the variable called $username then print something out.

< (Less Than)
You'll want to test if one value is less than another. Use the left angle bracket for this ( < )

> (Greater Than)
You'll also want to test if one value is greater than another. Use the right angle bracket for this ( > )

<= (Less than or equals to)
For a little more precision, you can test to see if one variable is less than or equal to another. Use the left angle bracket followed by the equals sign ( <= )

>= (Greater than or equals to)
If you need to test if one variable is greater than or equal to another, use the right angle bracket followed by the equals sign ( >= )