Can ($a == 1 && $a == 2 && $a == 3) ever evaluate to true? - php

Question

Similar to this question here which was intended for javascript, it has spawned off numerous spin-offs for various different languages. I'm curious if the following can ever evaluate to true in PHP:
($a == 1 && $a == 2 && $a == 3)
To follow up a bit more, it seems simply setting $a = true will yield the desired result (This was not the case for javascript, due to the way type casting works in both languages). A few answers (in javascript) worked with === as well, so in PHP with typechecking (===), can the following ever yield true?
($a === 1 && $a === 2 && $a === 3)

Answer 1

I just tried this:
$a = true;
echo ($a == 1 && $a == 2 && $a == 3);
and it echoed 1.
Because of the type casting and not type checking, 1, 2, 3 will be treated as true when compared to a boolean value.
Answer to the edit: No it can't be done.
Hackish method which #FrankerZ commented about:
Zero byte character = 0xFEFF
http://shapecatcher.com/unicode/info/65279
http://www.unicodemap.org/details/0xFEFF/index.html
$var  = "1";
$var = "2";
$ var = "3";
echo ($var  === "1" && $var === "2" && $ var === "3") ? "true" : "false";
This code runs with this character because the name $ var and $var  seems to be valid for the PHP compiler and with the appropiate font, it can be hidden. It can be achieved with Alt + 65279 on Windows.

Answer 2

Whilst not strictly in keeping with the question, this can be done if the ints are wrapped in quotes:
<?php
class A {
private static $i = 1;
public function __toString()
{
return (string)self::$i++;
}
}
$a = new A();
if($a == '1' && $a == '2' && $a == '3') {
echo 'yep';
} else {
echo 'nope';
}

Answer 3

I can't think of a case where strict comparison would ever yield true. === operator compares the types first, so there's no way to use any magic method wizardry.
For curiosity the closest i could get is to slightly modify the setting and hack the variable in a tick function. Since ticks are only incremeted per statement, we have to break the comparison to multiple statements for this to work.
$a = 1;
register_tick_function(function () use (&$a) {
++$a;
});
declare(ticks = 1) {
$a === 1 or exit(1);
$a === 2 or exit(1);
$a === 3 or exit(1);
}
echo "a = $a\n";
Try it online.