How Does the Spaceship Operator (<=>) Work in PHP 7?

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Understanding the Spaceship Operator in PHP 7

Introduced in PHP 7, the Spaceship operator (<=>) simplifies complex comparisons by providing a combined result.

How Does It Work?

The <=> operator evaluates two values and returns:

• 0 if the values are equal.
• 1 if the value on the left is greater.
• -1 if the value on the right is greater.

Comparison Rules

The Spaceship operator follows the same comparison rules as the existing comparison operators (<, <=, ==, >=, and >).

Usage Examples

Integer Comparison:

<code class="php">echo 1 <=> 1; // 0
echo 3 <=> 4; // -1
echo 4 <=> 3; // 1</code>

String Comparison:

<code class="php">echo "x" <=> "x"; // 0
echo "x" <=> "y"; // -1
echo "y" <=> "x"; // 1</code>

For string comparisons, the operator checks each character from left to right until a difference is found. It then compares the ASCII values of the different characters to determine which string is greater.

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