PHP if !==

[Joveice]

So I have this

if ($row['player1a'] !== '1') {
	header("Location: /error/");
	exit();
}

And the $row['player1a'] is 1 and this still triggers, I needed it to only trigger if $row['player1a'] wasent 1

what have I done wrong?

[Enderman]

Is player1a supposed to return 1 or '1' ?

[Joveice]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

Is player1a supposed to return 1 or '1' ?

1

[leonfagan71]

14 minutes ago, Joveice said:

So I have this

if ($row['player1a'] !== '1') {
	header("Location: /error/");
	exit();
}

And the $row['player1a'] is 1 and this still triggers, I needed it to only trigger if $row['player1a'] wasent 1

what have I done wrong?

!== is checking for an exact match including value types.

!= is not equals.

== is equals to.

 

remove one of the = signs.

[Joveice]

Just now, leonfagan71 said:

!== is checking for a true or false value.

!= is not equals.

== is equals to.

 

remove one of the = signs.

okey, and if I then change '1' to '2' and the value is 1 it will also trigger? (for later use)

[leonfagan71]

2 minutes ago, Joveice said:

okey, and if I then change '1' to '2' and the value is 1 it will also trigger? (for later use)

if ($row['player1a'] != '1') {
	//i will die when it isn't 1
	die();
}

 

[vorticalbox]

3 minutes ago, Joveice said:

okey, and if I then change '1' to '2' and the value is 1 it will also trigger? (for later use)

yes. If the value is not 2 then it would trigger. Maybe you should explain a little more about what you're trying to do so we can help you better.

[Hazy125]

Oh god I can't type. You said that the value you were checking against was 1, not '1'.

!= this operator would work. It checks to see if the values match.

!== also checks if the values match, but in greater depth. The value and data type have to match.

 

So if you changed it to this 

if ($row['player1a'] !== 1)

Then it will work. That's because you're feeding it a number, not a string.

[Joveice]

2 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

yes. If the value is not 2 then it would trigger. Maybe you should explain a little more about what you're trying to do so we can help you better.

I just needed it to only trigger if the value wasent 1 else just ignore it, but I got it working thanks to all of you

[vorticalbox]

Just now, Joveice said:

I just needed it to only trigger if the value wasent 1 else just ignore it, but I got it working thanks to all of you

if ($row['player1a'] != 1)

 

[mariushm]

=== and !== mean absolute equality or inequality  , meaning the data type is also checked. 1 would be different than '1'.

 

Why is it used...  some functions return FALSE on error, or a number from 0 to something. For example strpos() returns FALSE if the substring is not found in the bigger string, or a value between 0 and the maximum length of the string if it's found.

But, FALSE is loosely converted by php to 0 so you wouldn't know if the return of a function is actually some kind of error indication (FALSE) or actually the value 0. That's why you'd use !== to compare exactly to FALSE, and not 0 or NULL or ''  (all three are translated to FALSE when compared against a boolean value)

 

In your case, since you probably don't care if the variable in the array stores the information as a number ( 1 ) or as a string holding the value as a series of characters ( '1' ) , you can probably use the plain != and let PHP (if needed) do an additional step, converting the string '1' to the number 1, and comparing it with the value stored in the variable.

If you want to optimize your scripts, to make php work as little as possible, you would be careful to always use numbers and not strings, and any input received from the server you'd be careful to validate before using (test if it's a string that holds a number .. using is_numeric or ctype_digit for integer numbers or something like that) and then convert the actual string to an integer number before storing it in variables in php.

 

See  http://php.net/manual/en/types.comparisons.php for more details.