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Subject: __get() magic method and its use with empty() function.
From: faw217@gmail.com (Kuba Wieczorek)

Hello,

I'd like to talk about one thing I experienced using __get() magic 
method. It is a problem reported for the first time in a bug report 
(http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=24915) about five years ago but it has 
been closed and marked as 'Won't fix'.

Well, this is a sample code for this:

<?php
header('Content-type: text/plain');

class test
{
	protected $a;
	protected $b = 'test';

	public function __get($var)
	{
		return $this->$var;
	}
}

$test = new test;
print 'a: ' . var_export($test->a, true) . ' ' . 
var_export(empty($test->a), true) . "\n";
print 'b: ' . var_export($test->b, true) . ' ' . 
var_export(empty($test->b), true) . "\n";
?>

This is the current result:
a: NULL true
b: 'test' true

The expected one should be:
a: NULL true
b: 'test' false

There is a work-around for this, the vars have just to be assigned to 
another ones and then those ones checked with empty(), but of course it 
does not satisfy me.

The problem is really annoying. I am sure that there are many other 
developers here, who experienced it so I want to know your opinions 
about it.

Kuba Wieczorek