Why check both isset() and !empty()

Question

This is completely redundant. empty is more or less shorthand for !isset($foo) || !$foo, and !empty is analogous to isset($foo) && $foo. I.e. empty does the reverse thing of isset plus an additional check for the truthiness of a value.

Or in other words, empty is the same as !$foo, but doesn't throw warnings if the variable doesn't exist. That's the main point of this function: do a boolean comparison without worrying about the variable being set.

The manual puts it like this:

empty() is the opposite of (boolean) var, except that no warning is generated when the variable is not set.

You can simply use !empty($vars[1]) here.

isset() tests if a variable is set and not null:

http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.isset.php

empty() can return true when the variable is set to certain values:

http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.empty.php

To demonstrate this, try the following code with $the_var unassigned, set to 0, and set to 1.

<?php

#$the_var = 0;

if (isset($the_var)) {
  echo "set";
} else {
  echo "not set";
}

echo "\n";

if (empty($the_var)) {
  echo "empty";
} else {
  echo "not empty";
}
?>

The accepted answer is not correct.

isset() is NOT equivalent to !empty().

You will create some rather unpleasant and hard to debug bugs if you go down this route. e.g. try running this code:

<?php

$s = '';

print "isset: '" . isset($s) . "'. ";
print "!empty: '" . !empty($s) . "'";

?>

https://3v4l.org/J4nBb

$a = 0;
if (isset($a)) { //$a is set because it has some value ,eg:0
    echo '$a has value';
}
if (!empty($a)) { //$a is empty because it has value 0
    echo '$a is not empty';
} else {
    echo '$a is empty';
}

isset($vars[1]) AND !empty($vars[1]) is equivalent to !empty($vars[1]).

I prepared simple code to show it empirically.

Last row is undefined variable.

+-----------+---------+---------+----------+---------------------+
| Var value | empty() | isset() | !empty() | isset() && !empty() |
+-----------+---------+---------+----------+---------------------+
| ''        | true    | true    | false    | false               |
| ' '       | false   | true    | true     | true                |
| false     | true    | true    | false    | false               |
| true      | false   | true    | true     | true                |
| array ()  | true    | true    | false    | false               |
| NULL      | true    | false   | false    | false               |
| '0'       | true    | true    | false    | false               |
| 0         | true    | true    | false    | false               |
| 0.0       | true    | true    | false    | false               |
| undefined | true    | false   | false    | false               |
+-----------+---------+---------+----------+---------------------+

And code

$var1 = "";
$var2 = " ";
$var3 = FALSE;
$var4 = TRUE;
$var5 = array();
$var6 = null;
$var7 = "0";
$var8 = 0;
$var9 = 0.0;

function compare($var)
{
    print(var_export($var, true) . "|" .
        var_export(empty($var), true) . "|" .
        var_export(isset($var), true) . "|" .
        var_export(!empty($var), true) . "|" .
        var_export(isset($var) && !empty($var), true) . "\n");
}

for ($i = 1; $i <= 9; $i++) {
    $var = 'var' . $i;
    compare($$var);
}

@print(var_export($var10, true) . "|" .
    var_export(empty($var10), true) . "|" .
    var_export(isset($var10), true) . "|" .
    var_export(!empty($var10), true) . "|" .
    var_export(isset($var10) && !empty($var10), true) . "\n");

Undefined variable must be evaluated outside function, because function itself create temporary variable in the scope itself.

Empty just check is the refered variable/array has an value if you check the php doc(empty) you'll see this things are considered emtpy

* "" (an empty string)
* 0 (0 as an integer)
* "0" (0 as a string)
* NULL
* FALSE
* array() (an empty array)
* var $var; (a variable declared, but without a value in a class)

while isset check if the variable isset and not null which can also be found in the php doc(isset)