<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >empty</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.44"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="PHP Manual" HREF="manual.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Variable functions" HREF="ref.var.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="doubleval" HREF="function.doubleval.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="gettype" HREF="function.gettype.html"></HEAD ><BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >PHP Manual</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="function.doubleval.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="function.gettype.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><H1 ><A NAME="function.empty" >empty</A ></H1 ><DIV CLASS="refnamediv" ><A NAME="AEN27351" ></A >empty -- determine whether a variable is set</DIV ><DIV CLASS="refsect1" ><A NAME="AEN27354" ></A ><H2 >Description</H2 ><DIV CLASS="funcsynopsis" ><P ></P ><CODE CLASS="FUNCDEF" >int empty</CODE >(mixed var);<P ></P ></DIV ><P > Returns false if <TT CLASS="parameter" ><I >var</I ></TT > is set and has a non-empty or non-zero value; true otherwise. <DIV CLASS="informalexample" ><P ></P ><TABLE BORDER="0" BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" WIDTH="100%" ><TR ><TD ><PRE CLASS="programlisting" > 1 2 $var = 0; 3 if (empty($var)) { #evaluates true 4 print '$var is either 0 or not at all set'; 5 } 6 if (!isset($var)) { // evaluates false 7 print 'The $var is not set at all'; 8 } 9 </PRE ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><P ></P ></DIV > </P ><P > Note that this is meaningless when used on anything which isn't a variable; i.e. <B CLASS="command" >empty (addslashes ($name))</B > has no meaning since it would be checking whether something which isn't a variable is a variable with a false value. </P ><P > See also <A HREF="function.isset.html" ><B CLASS="function" >isset()</B ></A > and <A HREF="function.unset.html" ><B CLASS="function" >unset()</B ></A >. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="function.doubleval.html" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="manual.html" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="function.gettype.html" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >doubleval</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="ref.var.html" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >gettype</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >