php null详解,PHP is_null 用法 手册 | 示例代码

For what I realized is that  is_null($var)  returns exactly the opposite of  isset($var) , except that is_null($var) throws a notice if $var hasn't been set yet.

the following will prove that:

$quirks= array(null,true,false,0,1,''," ","unset");

foreach($quirksas$var) {

if ($var==="unset") unset($var);

echois_null($var) ?1:0;

echo isset($var) ?1:0;

echo"n";

}?>

this will print out something like:

10    // null

01    // true

01    // false

01    // 0

01    // 1

01    // ''

01    // " "

Notice:  Undefined variable: var in /srv/www/htdocs/sandbox/null/nulltest.php on line 8

10    // (unset)

For the major quirky types/values is_null($var) obviously always returns the opposite of isset($var), and the notice clearly points out the faulty line with the is_null() statement. You might want to examine the return value of those functions in detail, but since both are specified to return boolean types there should be no doubt.

A second look into the PHP specs tells that is_null() checks whether a value is null or not. So, you may pass any VALUE to it, eg. the result of a function.

isset() on the other hand is supposed to check for a VARIABLE's existence, which makes it a language construct rather than a function. Its sole porpuse lies in that checking. Passing anything else will result in an error.

Knowing that, allows us to draw the following unlikely conclusion:

isset() as a language construct is way faster, more reliable and powerful than is_null() and should be prefered over is_null(), except for when you're directly passing a function's result, which is considered bad programming practice anyways.