int to string on array - suggestions for this context - php

Question

I have these arrays : $_POST['atlOriginal'] and $oldAtlPos. The values stored of both are this :
0 0
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
7 7
8 8
9 9
Now, if I done this comparison $_POST['atlOriginal']===$oldAtlPos it returns false, because $_POST['atlOriginal'] values are Strings (the are passed trought GET/POST from client) and $oldAtlPos values are Integer.
What can I do here? What's the best strategy? Convert one in another?
P.S. I need to valutate the order of the values, so === is necessary;
P.S. 2 Values of Both will be stored in the database as Char(2);
EDIT
So :
for($i=0; $i<sizeof($oldAtlPos); $i++) echo $_POST['atlOriginal'][$i]."|".gettype($_POST['atlOriginal'][$i])." - ".$oldAtlPos[$i]."|".gettype((string)$oldAtlPos[$i])."<br/>";
will return :
0|string - 0|string
1|string - 1|string
2|string - 2|string
3|string - 3|string
4|string - 4|string
5|string - 5|string
6|string - 6|string
7|string - 7|string
8|string - 8|string
9|string - 9|string
10|string - 10|string
11|string - 11|string
12|string - 12|string
13|string - 13|string
14|string - 14|string
15|string - 15|string
16|string - 16|string
17|string - 17|string
18|string - 18|string
But seems that if($_POST['atlOriginal']===(string)$oldAtlPos) still return false...

Answer 1

Do not compare values with their types using ===.
Compare just only values using ==.
Edit:
For example, there are:
$a = array(1, 2, 3);
$b = array('1', '2', '3');
and then when you compare those arrays in 2 ways (== and ===), you will get following results:
$a == $b; // TRUE
$a === $b; // FALSE
So as you can see, what you need is to use == compare method.
Edit 2:
In your P.S. you say that you need to compare arrays order too.
It does it already. If you compare arrays like that you will get false:
$a = array(3, 2, 1);
$b = array('1', '2', '3');
$a == $b; // FALSE

Answer 2

If you are trying to compare them you could:
use == instead of === (recommended)
== means 'do these values match'
=== means 'do these values match and are they of the same type'
$foo['test'] = Array("1","2","3");
$bar = Array(1,2,3);
$baz = Array(3,2,1);
var_dump($foo['test'] === $bar); // FALSE - does not work
var_dump($foo['test'] === (string) $bar); // FALSE - does not work
var_dump($foo['test'] == $bar); // TRUE - works!
var_dump($foo['test'] == $baz); // FALSE - works because $baz is in a different order
== does not check key/value pair order however since you are only using values, the key is essentially the order and matches (so this does what you want)
From this above code, this is what the array actually looks like
$foo['test']
array(3) {
[0]=>
string(1) "1"
[1]=>
string(1) "2"
[2]=>
string(1) "3"
}
$bar
array(3) {
[0]=>
int(1)
[1]=>
int(2)
[2]=>
int(3)
}
== checks to make sure the key (the part in []) and value (int() in this case) match, it does not check order -- but this does not matter since you are only using values and the key is the order.
The only time this would affect you is if you were using key/value pairs and wanted to check order such as:
// key/value pairs match but order does not
Array('1' => 'B', '0' => 'A') === Array('0' => 'A', '1' = 'B') // FALSE
Array('1' => 'B', '0' => 'A') == Array('0' => 'A', '1' = 'B') // TRUE -- order is not checked
Fix: If you are using Key=>Value pairs then this will do the trick:
// Function to fix data
function array_fix(&$item, $key)
{
$item = intval($item);
}
$foo['test'] = Array(1=>"1",2=>"2",3=>"3");
$bar = Array(1=>1,2=>2,3=>3);
$baz = Array(2=>2,1=>1,3=>3);
// str !== int
var_dump($foo['test'] === $bar); // FALSE
// Apply fix to all data in array
array_walk($foo['test'],'array_fix');
// int === int -- yay :-D
var_dump($foo['test'] === $bar); // TRUE
var_dump($foo['test'] === $baz); // FALSE - correct: out of order

Answer 3

you have to iterate though each elements and compare them individually