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empty

Determine whether a variable is empty (PHP 4, PHP 5)
bool empty ( mixed var )

Determine whether a variable is considered to be empty.

Parameters

var

Variable to be checked

Note:

empty() only checks variables as anything else will result in a parse error. In other words, the following will not work: empty(trim($name)).

empty() is the opposite of (boolean) var, except that no warning is generated when the variable is not set.

Return Values

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

The following things are considered to be empty:

"" (an empty string)

0 (0 as an integer)

"0" (0 as a string)

NULL

FALSE

array() (an empty array)

var $var; (a variable declared, but without a value in a class)

ChangeLog

Version	Description
PHP 5	As of PHP 5, objects with no properties are no longer considered empty.
PHP 4	As of PHP 4, The string value "0" is considered empty.

Examples

Example 2582. A simple empty() / isset() comparison.

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<?php

$var = 0;



// Evaluates to true because $var is empty

if (empty($var)) {

    echo '$var is either 0, empty, or not set at all';

}



// Evaluates as true because $var is set

if (isset($var)) {

    echo '$var is set even though it is empty';

}

?>

Notes