In the PHP programming language, the operators =, ==, and === have the following distinctions:
1. `=` (assignment):
* Used to assign a value to a variable.
* Example: `$a = 10;` - this assigns the value `10` to the variable `$a`.
2. `==` (value comparison):
* Compares the values of two expressions and returns `true` if they are equal after type coercion, and `false` otherwise.
* Example: `$a == $b` - this compares the values of the variables `$a and $b`.
3. `===` (strict comparison):
* This is a strict comparison operator that considers both the values and types of the operands.
* Returns `true` if both the values and types of the operands are identical, and `false` otherwise.
* Example: `$a === $b` - this is a strict comparison of the values and types of the variables `$a and $b`.
$a = 5; // assignment
$b = "5";
var_dump($a == $b); // true, because values are equal (non-strict comparison)
var_dump($a === $b); // false, because values are different or types are different (strict comparison)
In PHP, `==` may perform automatic type coercion during comparison, while `===` uses strict comparison without automatic type coercion.
