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Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 13:40:19 +0200 (CEST)
To: Kris Craig <kris.craig@gmail.com>
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    PHP Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] not_null function
From: xen@dds.nl (Xen)

On Thu, 3 Jul 2014, Kris Craig wrote:

> I've found over the years that a lot of developers, particularly those who
> specialize in languages other than PHP, use is_null() when what they really
> want is empty().
>
> The problem with is_null() and the === operator is that PHP will throw a
> notice if the variable is not set.  If you're just looking for whether a
> variable is blank or not, empty() will handle that whether the variable is
> set or not.  Personally, I don't understand why we need is_null() at all in
> its current form, since it's exactly the same as === NULL, except that it
> doesn't perform as well.
>
> Rather than removing it, I think is_null() should be changed into a
> language construct like isset() and empty().  That way, people could pass
> undefined variables to is_null() without triggering notices.  It'd
> basically be the same as empty, except that it would only return true of
> the value is exactly NULL.
>
> empty( $var ) is functionally equivalent to isset( $var ) && $var == NULL
> is_null( $var ) should be functionally equivalent to isset( $var ) && $var
> === NULL
>
> I think that would make a hell of a lot more sense than the way is_null()
> works now.  Thoughts?

For PHP, empty() is congruent because PHP works with buckets that have 
names. Personally, I consider that incongruent with programming itself, 
which is why I hesitate to use empty() because to my mind it implies a 
container and a variable is for me not necessarily a container that has 
one or more elements.

I guess if you can wrap your mind around that, it is fine, but I can't.

(!empty()) feels a lot better to me though than (!is_null()). I would 
definitely prefer that over the other.

But like I said in my other reply, I feel this "!empty" should get 
replaced with "not_null". If "!null()" were possible we'd have that but 
that is not an option no matter how far and hard you push it.

But we are on the same track and I like that :D!.

Regards,

Bart Schouten / Xen.