empty

add a note User Contributed Notes

r-u-d-i-e at jouwmoeder dot dot nl
10-Jul-2006 10:45


The two following methods will do exactly the same, in any case:

<?php



// CASE 1

if ( empty($var) )

{

    // do your thing

}



// CASE 2

if ( !isset($var) || !$var )

{

    // do that same thing

}



?>

empty( ) checks for isset AND also the value of the variable (0, "0", "", etc).

Karl Jung
04-Jun-2006 12:03


This function I did, works like empty(), but doesn't consider zero (0) as empty.

Also, considers as empty, a string containing only blank spaces, or "\n", "\t", etc.



function my_empty($val)

{

    $result = false;

    

    if (empty($val)) 

        $result = true;



    if (!$result && (trim($val) == ""))

        $result = true;



    if ($result && is_numeric($val) && $val == 0) 

        $result = false;



    return $result;

}



Values considered as EMPTY:



$val = "";

$val = "  ";

$val = " \t \n ";

$val = array();

$val = false;

$val = null;



Values considered NOT EMPTY:



$val = "0";

$val = intval(0);

$val = floatval(0);

boards at gmail dot com
29-Apr-2006 02:53


Followup to ben at wbtproductions dot com:



You'll want to do this check for numeric 0:

<?

if ($data === 0) echo 'The data is zero.';

?>



Checking $data == 0 basically means the same thing as "is $data false?".  Loose type checking is a gotcha you should look out for.

ben at wbtproductions dot com
19-Apr-2006 08:40


It is important to note that empty() does not check data type.  This can change the functioning of any program if, at some point, your data might be all zeroes, containing no real data, but also not empty by PHP's definition. 



Think about this:

$data = "00000";

if (empty($data))

echo "The data appears empty.";



if (0==$data) //Use this test for number applications!!

echo "The data is zero.";



$data = 0;

if (empty($data))

echo "Remember, zero is empty.";



outputs:

The data is zero. 

Remember, zero is empty. 



This could crop up in ZIP codes and phone numbers or zero-filled/zero-padded values from SQL.  Watch those variable types!

nobody at example dot com
01-Mar-2006 04:06


Re: inerte is my gmail.com username's comment:



While that may be true, those two statements (empty($var), $var == '') are NOT the same. When programming for web interfaces, where a user may be submitting '0' as a valid field value, you should not be using empty().



<?php

    $str = '0';



    // outputs 'empty'

    echo empty($str) ? 'empty' : 'not empty';



    // outputs 'not empty'

    echo $str == '' ? 'empty' : 'not empty';

?>

Trigunflame at charter dot net
01-Feb-2006 01:35


But not faster than 



if (!$var)

{



}



which is about 20% faster than empty() on php5.1

inerte is my gmail.com username
11-Nov-2005 10:58


empty() is about 10% faster than a comparision.



if (empty($var)) {

}



is faster than:



if ($var == '') {

}



YMMV, empty() also checks array and attributes, plus 0, and '' is kind a string with nothing inside. But I was using '' and got a huge performance boost with empty().



PHP 4.3.10-15, Apache/2.0.54, Kernel 2.4.27-2-386.

nahpeps at gmx dot de
19-Aug-2005 06:14


When using empty() on an object variable that is provided by the __get function, empty() will always return true.



For example:

class foo {

   

   public function __get($var) {

      if ($var == "bar") {

         return "bar";   

      }   

   }   

}

$object_foo = new foo();

echo '$object_foo->bar is ' . $object_foo->bar;

if (empty($object_foo->bar)) {

   echo '$object_foo->bar seems to be empty';   

}



produces the following output:

$object_foo->bar is bar

$object_foo->bar seems to be empty

jmarbas at hotmail dot com
02-Jul-2005 12:10


empty($var) will return TRUE if $var is empty (according to the definition of 'empty' above) AND if $var is not set.



I know that the statement in the "Return Values" section of the manual already says this in reverse:



"Returns FALSE if var has a non-empty and non-zero value." 



but I was like "Why is this thing returning TRUE for unset variables???"... oh i see now... Its supposed to return TRUE for unset variables!!!



<?php

  ini_set('error_reporting',E_ALL);

  ini_set('display_errors','1');

  empty($var);

?>

nsetzer at allspammustdie dot physics dot umd dot edu
30-Jun-2005 11:02


I needed to know if the variable was empty, but allow for it to be zero, so I created this function.  I post it here in case anybody else needs to do that (it's not hard to make, but why reinvent the wheel...)



<?php

function is_extant($var)

{

if (isset($var))

    {

    if ( empty($var) && ($var !== 0) && ($var !== '0') )

        return FALSE;

    else

        return TRUE;

    }

else

    return FALSE;

}

?>

tan_niao
09-Jun-2005 11:43


admin at prelogic dot net has wrote the following

  In response to admin at ninthcircuit dot info



  The best way around that is the trim function. For example:



  $spaces = "        ";

  if(empty(trim($spaces)){

     echo "Omg empty string.";

  }else{

      echo "Omg the string isnt empty!";

  }



  Hope that helps anyone, though it is rather trivial.



i think is said above that empty(trim($spaces)) dont work

,i think is better to seperate this two function



  trim($spaces);

  empty($spaces) thern continue with the code......

Kouenny
08-Jun-2005 09:45


In response to "admin at ninthcircuit dot info" :



Instead of using "$spaces = str_replace(" ","","      ");"

you should use the function "trim()", which clear spaces before and after the string. e.g. "trim('    example 1           ')" returns "example 1".

shorty114
28-May-2005 07:17


In Response to Zigbigidorlu:



Using if (!$_POST['foo']) is not the best way to test if a variable is empty/set. Doing that creates a E_WARNING error for an uninitialized variable, and if you are planning to use a rather high error level, this is not the better way, since this will create an error whereas if (!isset($_POST['foo'])) or (empty($_POST['foo'])) doesn't echo an error, just returns true/false appropriately.



One example of this is in the phpBB code - the coding guidelines state that you have to use isset() or empty() to see if a variable is set, since they planned to use a higher level of error reporting.

Zigbigidorlu
25-May-2005 01:44


This function is of very little use, as the "!" operator creates the same effect.



<?

 if(empty($_POST['username']) exit;

?>



 has the exact same functionality as:



<?

 if(!$_POST['username']) exit;

?>

admin at ninthcircuit dot info
25-May-2005 01:14


Something to note when using empty():



empty() does not see a string variable with nothing but spaces in it as "empty" per se.



Why is this relevant in a PHP application? The answer is.. if you intend to use empty() as a means of input validation, then a little extra work is necessary to make sure that empty() evaluates input with a more favorable outcome.



Example:

<?php

  $spaces = "       ";

  /* This will return false! */

  if (empty($spaces))

     print "This will never be true!";

  else

     print "Told you!";

?>



To make empty() behave the way you would expect it to, use str_replace().



<?php

  $spaces = str_replace(" ","","      ");

  /* This will return true! */

  if (empty($spaces))

      print "This will always be true!";

  else

      print "Told you!";

?>



This might seem trivial given the examples shown above; however, if one were to be storing this information in a mySQL database (or your preferred DB of choice), it might prove to be problematic for retrieval of it later on.

admin at ninthcircuit dot info
25-May-2005 01:13


Something to note when using empty():



empty() does not see a string variable with nothing but spaces in it as "empty" per se.



Why is this relevant in a PHP application? The answer is.. if you intend to use empty() as a means of input validation, then a little extra work is necessary to make sure that empty() evaluates input with a more favorable outcome.



Example:

<?php

  $spaces = "       ";

  /* This will return false! */

  if (empty($spaces))

     print "This will never be true!";

  else

     print "Told you!";

?>



To make empty() behave the way you would expect it to, use str_replace().



<?php

  $spaces = str_replace(" ","","      ");

  /* This will return true! */

  if (empty($spaces))

      print "This will always be true!";

  else

      print "Told you!";

?>



This might seem trivial given the examples shown above; however, if one were to be storing this information in a mySQL database (or your preferred DB of choice), it might prove to be problematic for retrieval of it later on.

myfirstname dot barros at gmail dot com
29-Apr-2005 11:15


<?php

$a = Array( ); #<- empty

$a = Array( '' ); #<- NOT empty

$a = Array( Null ); #<- NOT empty

?>



---

gabriel

rehfeld.us
23-Aug-2004 04:47


ive found the empty() contruct extremely usefull. For some reason people seem to think its of little use, but thats not so.



for example, form fields can be checked in 1 step by using empty(). (assuming a basic check of whether it was submitted and if submitted, that it was not empty.)



<?php



if (!empty($_POST['name'])) $name = $_POST['name'];



?>



compared to isSet(), this saves an extra step. using !empty() will check if the variable is not empty, and if the variable doesnt exit, no warning is generated.



with isSet(), to acheive the same result as the snippit above, you would need to do this:



<?php



if (isSet($_POST['name']) && $_POST['name']) $name = $_POST['name'];



?>



so using !empty() reduces code clutter and improves readability, which IMO, makes this VERY usefull.

paul at worldwithoutwalls dot co dot uk
23-May-2004 01:09


Note the exceptions when it comes to decimal numbers:



<?php

$a = 0.00;

$b = '0.00';

echo (empty($a)? "empty": "not empty"); //result empty

echo (empty($b)? "empty": "not empty"); //result not empty

//BUT...

$c = intval($b);

echo (empty($c)? "empty": "not empty"); //result empty

?>



For those of you using MySQL, if you have a table with a column of decimal type, when you do a SELECT, your data will be returned as a string, so you'll need to do apply intval() before testing for empty.



e.g.

TABLE t has columns id MEDIUMINT and d DECIMAL(4,2)

and contains 1 row where id=1, d=0.00

<?php

$q = "SELECT * FROM t";

$res = mysql_query($q);

$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($res);

echo (empty($row['d'])? "empty": "not empty"); //result not empty

?>

phpcheatsheet at blueshoes dot org
27-Nov-2002 03:18


the php cheatsheet gives a good overview for empty(), isSet(), is_null() etc. http://www.blueshoes.org/en/developer/php_cheat_sheet/



to chris at chaska dot com:

that line

if ( ! isset( $var ) ) return TRUE;

won't do anything, it's useless in that scope.

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