I'm learning PHP and noticed that both || and the word or are used for logical conditions. They seem to produce the same result in simple examples. I also found both and != used for inequality. Do these operators always mean the same thing, or are there situations where choosing one over the other changes the result?
2 Answers
Yes, and != are equivalent in PHP: both mean “not equal.” The main distinction to remember is between || and or, since their precedence differs even though both represent logical OR.
In PHP, || and or both perform a logical OR, but they have different operator precedence. || has higher precedence than assignment, while the word or has lower precedence than assignment. That means these can behave differently: `$result = true || false;` assigns true after evaluating the OR expression, while `$result = true or false;` is effectively treated as `($result = true) or false`. In straightforward conditions they may look interchangeable, but || is usually safer inside expressions.
A useful example is `$result = false || true;`, which evaluates the OR operation before assigning the result. With the word `or`, assignment happens first because of its lower precedence.