Php – Check for empty PHP array

arraycoding-stylePHP

An empty array in PHP is considered falsey. That means the following will not print anything as the array is empty.

<?php
$myArray = array()

if ( $myArray ) {
  print "My Array is NOT empty";
}

What is considered better practice in this case when determining if there are elements in the array:

To use if ( !empty( $myArray ) )
To use if ( myArray )

Please note: this question is not about subjectivity. I don't care what my team mate thinks. I care about best practices in the industry.

Best Answer

If the intent of your condition is to check that the array contains 0 elements, using count($array) === 0 is the best and most readable solution.

Related Solutions

Php – Why do many PHP Devs hate using isset() and/or any of PHP’s similarly defensive functions like empty()

I code to E_STRICT and nothing else.

Using empty and isset checks does not make your code ugly, it makes your code more verbose. In my mind what is the absolute worst thing that can happen from using them? I type a few more characters.

Verses the consequences of not using them, at the very least warnings.

C++ – How to Nicely Use Constant std::string in C++

Hardcoding such strings is generally considered to be bad practice.

Not sure I agree with that.

String literals are easy to read rather than the name of a string. If you want the same text for multiple locations then encapsulate the text into a function and call the single function to display the message.

If you want to centralize the text into a single file. Then what you are looking for is: strings as resources not manually moving all your string literals to string variables.

Checkout the following packages (normally used in localization but will work here).

* gettext

Basically what this package does is allow you to leave the 'English' version of the message in the code. But it will use the 'English' text as a key into a resource table to get the corrct version of the string for a particular local.

So code that looked like this:

printf ("and suddenly there's one line which is good..");

// Now looks like this:

printf (gettext ("and suddenly there's one line which is good.."));

You do not need to go through the hassel of extracting all your constant strings into another package.

See here for full details. http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/

Personally I use the above in combination with boost format libraries for localization.

std::cout << boost::formt("The time is %1 in %2.") % time % country;

becomes:

std::cout << boost::formt(gettext("The time is %1 in %2.")) % time % country;

English Resource File:      "The time is %1 in %2."
Azerbaijani Resource File:  "Saat %2 saat %1 deyil."

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Php – Why do many PHP Devs hate using isset() and/or any of PHP’s similarly defensive functions like empty()

C++ – How to Nicely Use Constant std::string in C++

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