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Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 18:57:41 -0700
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To: "D. Dante Lorenso" <dante@vocalspace.com>
CC: Jochem Maas <jochem@iamjochem.com>,
	Rick Widmer <vchkpw@developersdesk.com>,
	PHPdev <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Seeking 'coalesce' php internal function
From: rasmus@lerdorf.com (Rasmus Lerdorf)

D. Dante Lorenso wrote:
> In my PHP zen world, empty() and filled() are friends.  Ok, I've been 
> selling 'filled()' for a while now.  Can we reverse the sell and try 
> this .. why SHOULDN'T filled() be added to the language?

Because it doesn't do enough.  Unlike empty(), when there actually is 
something there, you have to check the type before using it anyway.

eg.

   $a = filled($_GET['a'],$_GET['b']);

You still have to do:

   if(!is_array($a)) echo $a;

Because people could put ?a[]=1 in the GET args there and you have to 
check for that before using it.  That second type check defeats the 
purpose of filled() as far as I am concerned.  We need a quick way to do 
a check and default assignment without throwing a notice which is what 
?: provides, then we need a decent way to check input arguments which is 
what pecl/filter is being brought into the core for (among other things).

See: 
http://www.php.net/~derick/meeting-notes.html#ifsetor-as-replacement-for-foo-isset-foo-foo-something-else

By the way, the lack of array checks is rampant out there.  Pick just 
about any PHP site and find a page where it has arguments and add [] to 
one of them and watch it blow up.  In some cases where the developers 
were smart enough to send errors to their error log, you can't see that 
you made it blow up, but in surprisingly many you can:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title[]=Special:Userlogin&returnto[]=Main_Page

-Rasmus