What does the operator '==' do when comparing two arrays in PHP?

The operator '==' in PHP performs a comparison of two arrays to determine if they have the same key/value pairs, regardless of the order in which those pairs are arranged. This means that if two arrays contain exactly the same keys associated with the same values, they will be considered equal, even if the keys are in a different order.

For example, if you have one array with the structure ['a' => 1, 'b' => 2] and another array structured as ['b' => 2, 'a' => 1], using the '==' operator will return true, indicating that these arrays are equal based solely on their content.

In contrast, the other options describe different behaviors that do not accurately reflect the functionality of the '==' operator. Specifically, strictly equal comparisons or type checks are not part of the functionality of '==', which focuses on value equality rather than strict type identity or merging functionality.