It is also worth clarifying that the word “identical” is referring to comparison of variable data types. While using double equal signs (==) is appropriate for comparing the contents of two variables, using triple equal signs (===) is intended not only for comparing the contents of two variables, but comparing the data type (or the type of each variable).

The first example was a good illustration of this in the comments where variable $a is assigned an integer (int) value of 1 and variable $b was assigned a boolean (bool) value of TRUE.

Always remember that the data type of a variable is being set automatically by the *type* of value you assign it, whether it be integer (int), floating point (float), associative array (array), boolean (bool), class object (object) or even a resource (as in the case of MySQL queries). Therefore, use of the triple equal sign (===) for comparison is most appropriate when data types matter.