Spaceship operator in PHP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Spaceship Operator in PHP

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple ranking system for a game. You want to compare players' scores to see who is ahead, behind, or tied.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to use the PHP spaceship operator to compare two numbers and understand its output.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create two variables with exact scores

Create a variable to hold the comparison result using the spaceship operator

Print the comparison result

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Comparing scores or values quickly is common in games, sorting, and decision-making.

💼 Career

Understanding comparison operators helps in writing clean and efficient code for sorting and conditional logic.

1

Create two score variables

Create two variables called $score1 and $score2 with values 85 and 90 respectively.

PHP

$score1 = 0;
$score2 = 0;
# Create two variables called $score1 and $score2 with values 85 and 90 respectively

Need a hint?

Use the assignment operator = to set the values.

2

Create a comparison variable

Create a variable called $comparison that uses the spaceship operator <=> to compare $score1 and $score2.

PHP

<?php
$score1 = 85;
$score2 = 90;
# Create a variable $comparison that compares $score1 and $score2 using the spaceship operator

Need a hint?

The spaceship operator returns -1, 0, or 1 depending on the comparison.

3

Add a condition to explain the result

Use an if statement to print 'Score1 is less' if $comparison is -1, 'Scores are equal' if 0, and 'Score1 is greater' if 1.

PHP

 $score2;
# Use if statements to print the comparison result as text

Need a hint?

Use strict comparison === to check the value of $comparison.

4

Print the final comparison result

Run the program to print the correct comparison message based on the spaceship operator result.

PHP

 $score2;
if ($comparison === -1) {
    echo 'Score1 is less';
} elseif ($comparison === 0) {
    echo 'Scores are equal';
} else {
    echo 'Score1 is greater';
}
# Run the program to see the output

Need a hint?

The output should tell you which score is smaller or if they are equal.