Doc #74842 [NEW]: The use of "is set" in the definition of isset is vague.

From: dominic dot mayers at meditationstudies dot org Operating system: PHP version: Irrelevant Package: Documentation problem Bug Type: Documentation Problem Bug description:The use of "is set" in the definition of isset is vague. Description: ------------ --- From manual page: http://www.php.net/function.isset --- The definition should not be using "is set". Personally, I say that a variable cannot be set to NULL. For me, saying otherwise would be a contradiction, because we assign NULL to a variable to unset it. Others feel it makes sense to say that we set a variable to NULL, why not, it's a value. The point here is that "is set" is not very helpful in a definition. The extra "... and is not Null" helps, but it's hard to think because we still have these two cases. I am aware that another 8 years old bug mentions that the current definition seems a contradiction because we add "... and is not NULL". However, it is not a contradiction. It's either a useful addition, if we can set a variable to NULL, or redundant otherwise, but never a contradiction. The issue is more with "is set", because having two possible cases brings confusion. My native language is not English, but I would think something like "to determine if a variable has been assigned a non NULL value" would be more informative. The page could further recall that a way to unset a variable is to assign NULL to it. I would also recall that is_null is the opposite of isset. -- Edit bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=74842&edit=1 -- Try a snapshot (PHP 5.4): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=trysnapshot54 Try a snapshot (PHP 5.5): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=trysnapshot55 Try a snapshot (trunk): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=trysnapshottrunk Fixed in SVN: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=fixed Fixed in release: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=alreadyfixed Need backtrace: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=needtrace Need Reproduce Script: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=needscript Try newer version: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=oldversion Not developer issue: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=support Expected behavior: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=notwrong Not enough info: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=notenoughinfo Submitted twice: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=submittedtwice register_globals: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=globals PHP 4 support discontinued: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=php4 Daylight Savings: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=dst IIS Stability: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=isapi Install GNU Sed: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=gnused Floating point limitations: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=float No Zend Extensions: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=nozend MySQL Configuration Error: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=74842&r=mysqlcfg