PHP: a short cut for isset and !empty?

Question

I wonder if there any better ideas to solve the problem below,

I have a form with a number of input fields, such as,

Answer 1

User-defined function, I 'm afraid. But they come out short enough. I have one lying around somewhere if you want to take a look, but it's really trivial as you can imagine.

Update:

Here's one I found:

define('PARAM_INT', 0);
define('PARAM_STR', 1);

function get_param($name, $default = null, $type = PARAM_INT) {
    $value = $default;

    if (isset($_POST[$name])) {
        $value = $_POST[$name];
    }
    else if (isset($_GET[$name])) {
        $value = $_GET[$name];
    }

    switch($type) {
        case PARAM_INT:
            $value = (int)$value;
            break;
        case PARAM_STR:
            break;
        default:
            // error your heart out here
    }
    return $value;
}

Of course now all the cool kids do it with filter_var, but the idea is the same.

Answer 2

I'm always making myself unpoular with that. But the best approach is to get over the micro optimization mantra and use the syntax construct which was devised for that @.

Factually I'm lying. I'm all too often using isset() myself. (But at least I know it's not very bright.) And for new projects I'm now using object-oriented superglobals, which combine filtering and implicit isset tests into $_POST, $_GET, $_REQUEST wrappers. $_REQUEST->ascii["title"] or $_GET["raw"] don't bring up debug messages anymore.

Answer 3

isset && !empty is redundant. The empty language construct is basically shorthand for !isset($foo) || !$foo, with !empty being equivalent to isset($foo) && $foo. So you can shorten your code by leaving out the isset check.

A much simpler way is:

$values = array('pg_title' => null, 'pg_subtitle' => null, …);
$values = array_merge($values, $_POST);

// use $values['pg_title'] etc.

If you don't want your default null values to be overwritten by falsey values, e.g. '', you can do something like this:

$values = array_merge($values, array_filter($_POST));

Just be aware that '0' is falsey as well.

Answer 4

empty($var) is an abbreviation for !( isset($var) && $var ).

So !empty($_POST['...']) will be sufficient for your situation — the isset call you have currently is redundant.

Answer 5

You can use a simple function

function post_value_or($key, $default = NULL) {
    return isset($_POST[$key]) && !empty($_POST[$key]) ? $_POST[$key] : $default;
}

Then use:

$pg_title = post_value_or('pg_title');
// OR with a default
$pg_title = post_value_or('pg_title', 'No Title');