note 41470 modified in language.types.string by colder

Here is a possible gotcha related to oddness involved with accessing strings by character past the end of the string: $string = 'a'; var_dump($string[2]); // string(0) "" var_dump($string[7]); // string(0) "" $string[7] === ''; // TRUE It appears that anything past the end of the string gives an empty string.. However, when E_NOTICE is on, the above examples will throw the message: Notice: Uninitialized string offset: N in FILE on line LINE This message cannot be specifically masked with @$string[7], as is possible when $string itself is unset. isset($string[7]); // FALSE $string[7] === NULL; // FALSE Even though it seems like a not-NULL value of type string, it is still considered unset. --was-- Here is a possible gotcha related to oddness involved with accessing strings by character past the end of the string: $string = 'a'; var_dump($string{2}); // string(0) "" var_dump($string{7}); // string(0) "" $string{7} === ''; // TRUE It appears that anything past the end of the string gives an empty string.. However, when E_NOTICE is on, the above examples will throw the message: Notice: Uninitialized string offset: N in FILE on line LINE This message cannot be specifically masked with @$string{7}, as is possible when $string itself is unset. isset($string{7}); // FALSE $string{7} === NULL; // FALSE Even though it seems like a not-NULL value of type string, it is still considered unset. http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php