PHP check whether property exists in object or class

property_exists( mixed $class , string $property )

if (property_exists($ob, 'a')) 

---

isset( mixed $var [, mixed $... ] )

NOTE : Mind that isset() will return false if property is null

if (isset($ob->a))

---

Example 1:

$ob->a = null
var_dump(isset($ob->a)); // false

Example 2:

class Foo
{
   public $bar = null;
}

$foo = new Foo();

var_dump(property_exists($foo, 'bar')); // true
var_dump(isset($foo->bar)); // false

To check if the property exists and if it's null too, you can use the function property_exists().

Docs: http://php.net/manual/en/function.property-exists.php

As opposed with isset(), property_exists() returns TRUE even if the property has the value NULL.

bool property_exists ( mixed $class , string $property )

Example:

if (property_exists($testObject, $property)) {
    //do something
}

Neither isset or property_exists work for me.

• isset returns false if the property exists but is NULL.
• property_exists returns true if the property is part of the object's class definition, even if it has been unset.

I ended up going with:

    $exists = array_key_exists($property, get_object_vars($obj));

Example:

    class Foo {
        public $bar;

        function __construct() {
            $property = 'bar';

            isset($this->$property); // FALSE
            property_exists($this, $property); // TRUE
            array_key_exists($property, get_object_vars($this)); // TRUE

            unset($this->$property);

            isset($this->$property); // FALSE
            property_exists($this, $property); // TRUE
            array_key_exists($property, get_object_vars($this)); // FALSE

            $this->$property = 'baz';

            isset($this->$property); // TRUE
            property_exists($this, $property); // TRUE
            array_key_exists($property, get_object_vars($this));  // TRUE
        }
    }

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';