Why is === faster than == in PHP?

Question

Why is === faster than == in PHP?

Answer 1

Because the equality operator == coerces, or converts, the data type temporarily to see if it’s equal to the other operand, whereas === (the identity operator) doesn’t need to do any converting whatsoever and thus less work is done, which makes it faster.

Answer 2

I don't really know if it's significantly faster, but === in most languages is a direct type comparison, while == will try to do type coercion if necessary/possible to gain a match.

Answer 3

First, === checks to see if the two arguments are the same type - so the number 1 and the string '1' fails on the type check before any comparisons are actually carried out. On the other hand, == doesn't check the type first and goes ahead and converts both arguments to the same type and then does the comparison.

Therefore, === is quicker at checking a fail condition

Answer 4

The == incurs a larger overhead of type conversion before comparison. === first checks the type, then proceeds without having to do any type conversion.

Answer 5

Because === doesn't need to coerce the operands to be of the same type before comparing them.

I doubt the difference in speed is very much though. Under normal circumstances you should use whichever operator makes more sense.

Answer 6

Faster should not just be measured in direct execution time (direct performance tests are almost negligible in this case). That said, I would need to see a test involving iteration, or recursion, to really see if there is a significant, cumulative difference (when used in a realistic context). The testing and debugging time you will save when dealing with edge cases should be meaningful to you, also