Unexpected behavior with PHP selector with empty string

[suntrop]

I noticed something strange, with a selector I cannot explain why this happens.

$item_number = ' ';
$p = wire('pages')->get('template=product, item_number=' . $item_number);
echo $p->title;

The code above finds a page with an item_number set to the value of "50032". There is no space (had a look at the DB).

I would have though using the = operator the code above gets nothing or if present something with an empty item_number. But no with a totally different value.

It works as expected if I change the code to:

$p = wire('pages')->get("template=product, item_number='{$item_number}'");

Does anybody know why the first code example works differently?

PW 3.0.243

[elabx]

Might there be something in the trash with that number? get() skips any access control check!

[suntrop]

No, it's deftly that particular page, just sitting in the page tree like many others. It is, by the way, the first page in the page tree with an item_number (the pages above have empty item_number values). 

[da²]

Both codes are NOT giving the same selector, you could check by printing it.

First case gives: "item_number= " (with a space)
Second one gives: "item_number=' '" (space inside quotes)

To find empty values, you can just use "item_number=''" (no space inside quotes), or "item_number=" (nothing after equal).

But I don't know why the first one is returning a page with item_number=50032. If you're sure everything is right on your side, maybe report a bug on Github.

[suntrop]

Thanks for your answer. To clarify, I don't want to get pages with empty values, nor do I have a problem with finding what I need. I'm curious why a blank search query produces non-blank results. I might post this question on GitHub later.