Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=54547&edit=1
ID: 54547
Comment by: c at hotmail dot com
Reported by: peter dot ritt at gmx dot net
Summary: wrong equality of string numbers
Status: Verified
Type: Bug
Package: Unknown/Other Function
Operating System: linux
PHP Version: 5.3.6
Assigned To: dmitry
Block user comment: N
Private report: N
New Comment:
"In the majority of cases when dealing with HTTP requests and database results,
which is what PHP deals with most, the loose comparison makes life easiest on
the developer."
By 'the developer' I assume you mean people who can't type (string) or (int) ?
No other language has this issue because they aren't designed around
programmers who do not really understand how to program. Please make the
developer's life easier by making comparisons make sense.
Previous Comments:
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[2012-04-12 20:38:48] elementation at gmail dot com
It's absolutely unreal that this is even a discussion. PHP, the world doesn't
take you seriously and with bugs like this you provide further fodder.
Principle of Least Surprise â this should be a string comparison.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2012-04-12 20:32:57] b at hotmail dot vom
I would like to point out Perl is a weakly typed language, just like PHP, and
has
no issue with these cases. It's pretty weak from the developers to hide behind
the "But PHP is weakly typed!" argument.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2012-04-12 17:09:41] riel at surriel dot com
Conversion of numeric-looking strings to numbers does not have to be a problem,
as long as the code in the back end uses arbitrary-precision math. This is
slower than comparing a type that fits in a CPU register, but once you have
already spent the time to do an automatic type conversion, that really does not
matter.
When it comes to an operator like ==, every digit matters. Having == return
false when two items are different violates the principle of least surprise.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2012-04-12 17:03:32] jacob at fakku dot net
@rasmus
I just wanted to point out the issue mentioned in that article and how I felt
it
applied to this situation.
At least to me, it seems to me that it's a big deal when '9223372036854775807'
==
'9223372036854775808' returns true, even if it's an edge case. But you're right
about just using ===, which I will do if I ever run into this situation. After
doing a bit more research I can understand why it is the way it is and I was
probably too hasty to jump into this thread.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2012-04-12 16:53:54] ras...@php.net
@jacob PHP has two sets of comparison operators as well. == and ===
They aren't numeric and string, they are loose and strict. In the majority of
cases when dealing with HTTP requests and database results, which is what PHP
deals with most, the loose comparison makes life easiest on the developer.
In your case when comparison huge numeric strings that won't fit in any numeric
type, a strict comparison is needed:
$ php -r 'var_dump("61529519452809720693702583126814" ===
"61529519452809720000000000000000");'
bool(false)
(and hopefully you aren't actually using md5 for password hashing)
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