Making Null Safe in PHP - MySQL

A safe way to to handle this problem would be to use a custom isNull function, like so:

function isNull($var) {

if(is_null($var)) {

return true ;

} else if((string)$var == "") { // $var == "" will return true if $var = 0 that's why we need to cast into string

return true ;

} else if(count($var) < 1) { // return true even if its an empty array

return true ;

} else {

return false ;

}

}

Now the functional code becomes:

If ( isNull($var) ) { // returns true when var has value and $var is not equal to zero

echo $var ; // or do some processing

}

If your code is all object-oriented, you can put the function in one of the general classes as shown below:

Class GenClass

{

// class vars

....

function isNull()

{

.......

}

} // end of class

The functional code in this case becomes:

If ( $genClass->isNull($var) ) { // returns true when var has value and $var is not equal to zero

echo $var ; // or do some processing

}