Check if value isset and null

Question

I need to check if value is defined as anything, including null. isset treats null values as undefined and returns false. Take the following as an

Answer 1

I have found that compact is a function that ignores unset variables but does act on ones set to null, so when you have a large local symbol table I would imagine you can get a more efficient solution over checking array_key_exists('foo', get_defined_vars()) by using array_key_exists('foo', compact('foo')):

$foo = null;
echo isset($foo) ? 'true' : 'false'; // false
echo array_key_exists('foo', compact('foo')) ? 'true' : 'false'; // true
echo isset($bar) ? 'true' : 'false'; // false
echo array_key_exists('bar', compact('bar')) ? 'true' : 'false'; // false

Update

As of PHP 7.3 compact() will give a notice for unset values, so unfortunately this alternative is no longer valid.

compact() now issues an E_NOTICE level error if a given string refers to an unset variable. Formerly, such strings have been silently skipped.

Answer 2

The following code written as PHP extension is equivalent to array_key_exists($name, get_defined_vars()) (thanks to Henrik and Hannes).

// get_defined_vars()
// https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/master/Zend/zend_builtin_functions.c#L1777
// array_key_exists
// https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/master/ext/standard/array.c#L4393

PHP_FUNCTION(is_defined_var)
{

    char *name;
    int name_len;

    if (zend_parse_parameters(ZEND_NUM_ARGS() TSRMLS_CC, "s", &name, &name_len) == FAILURE) {
        return;
    }

    if (!EG(active_symbol_table)) {
        zend_rebuild_symbol_table(TSRMLS_C);
    }

    if (zend_symtable_exists(EG(active_symbol_table), name, name_len + 1)) {
        RETURN_TRUE;
    }

}