Solution
echo $person->middleName ?? 'Person does not have a middle name';
To show how this would look in an if statement for more clarity on how this is working.
if[$person->middleName ?? false] {
echo $person->middleName;
} else {
echo 'Person does not have a middle name';
}
Explanation
The traditional PHP way to check for something's existence is to do:
if[isset[$person->middleName]] {
echo $person->middleName;
} else {
echo 'Person does not have a middle name';
}
OR for a more class specific way:
if[property_exists[$person, 'middleName']] {
echo $person->middleName;
} else {
echo 'Person does not have a middle name';
}
These are both fine in long form statements but in ternary statements they become unnecessarily cumbersome like so:
isset[$person->middleName] ? echo $person->middleName : echo 'Person does not have a middle name';
You can also achieve this with just the ternary operator like so:
echo $person->middleName ?: 'Person does not have a middle name';
But... if the value does not exist [is not set] it will raise an E_NOTICE and is not best practise. If the value is null it will not raise the exception.
Therefore ternary operator to the rescue making this a neat little answer:
echo $person->middleName ?? 'Person does not have a middle name';
[PHP 5 >= 5.1.0, PHP 7, PHP 8]
property_exists — Checks if the object or class has a property
Description
property_exists[object|string $object_or_class, string $property]: bool
Note:
As opposed with isset[], property_exists[] returns
trueeven if the property has the valuenull.
Parameters
object_or_classThe class name or an object of the class to test for
propertyThe name of the property
Return Values
Returns true if the property exists, false if it doesn't exist or null in case of an error.
Examples
Example #1 A property_exists[] example
Notes
Note:
Using this function will use any registered autoloaders if the class is not already known.
Note:
The property_exists[] function cannot detect properties that are magically accessible using the
__getmagic method.
g dot gentile at parentesigraffe dot com ¶
7 years ago
The function behaves differently depending on whether the property has been present in the class declaration, or has been added dynamically, if the variable has been unset[]
Nanhe Kumar ¶
8 years ago
falundir at gmail dot com ¶
5 years ago
If you want to test if declared *public* property was unset, you can use the following code:
@fitorec ¶
3 years ago
Daniel dot Peder at infoset dot com ¶
5 years ago
declared properties cannot be unset
any set property does exist, even being set to null, regardless how it was set