This is a known .. uh … situation, but it bit me today.

So, consider the following:
$ php --version
PHP 5.4.16 (cli) (built: Jun 23 2015 21:17:27)
Copyright (c) 1997-2013 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.4.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2013 Zend Technologies
$ php -a
Interactive shell
php > $v1 = '479014103257633139480';
php > $v2 = '479014103257633139481';
php > echo ($v1==$v2?'Equal':'Not Equal');
Not Equal


Seems sane, yes? Reasonable. Kind of what you expect.

But then, consider this:

$ php --version
PHP 5.3.3 (cli) (built: Feb 9 2016 10:36:17)
Copyright (c) 1997-2010 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2010 Zend Technologies
$ php -a
Interactive shell
php > $v1 = '479014103257633139480';
php > $v2 = '479014103257633139481';
php > echo ($v1==$v2?'Equal':'Not Equal');
Equal

Yeah. Let that sink in for a moment.

Some versions of PHP (before 5.4.mumble) will preëmptively convert strings to numbers before comparing them (if they contain only digits). But if the number is large enough, you may lose the precision to compare them correctly.

Wow. I mean, just … well… I dunno.

For what it’s worth, strcmp will do the right thing regardless of PHP version. But seriously. I mean. Why do I use this turdburger of a language?