Using $_FILES as conditional along with $_POST

Hello all: Thanks for just being here.... I had a very vexing problem and in composing the text of the question I hit on the answer to the problem an the solution. It involves the html form attribute enctype="multipart/form-data" used for uploading files to the server, and the $_FILES superglobal. It appears that php creates the $_FILES global when it sees this enctype header in a post request, whether or not there are files to be uploaded. JK