Question

Can someone explain me why this:

var_dump((bool) 1==2);

returns

bool(true)

but

var_dump(1==2);

returns

bool(false)

Of course the second return is correct, but why in the first occasion php returns an unexpected value?

Answer 1

It’s actually not as strange it seems. (bool) has higher precedence than ==, so this:

var_dump((bool) 1==2);

is equivalent to this:

var_dump(  ((bool) 1)   == 2);

or this:

var_dump(true == 2);

Due to type juggling, the 2 also essentially gets cast to bool (since this is a “loose comparison”), so it’s equivalent to this:

var_dump(true == true);

or this:

var_dump(true);