PHP isset() with multiple parameters

ajax, mysql, php

Solution

The parameter(s) to `isset()` must be a variable reference and not an expression (in your case a concatenation); but you can group multiple conditions together like this:

if (isset($_POST['search_term'], $_POST['postcode'])) {
}

This will return `true` only if all arguments to `isset()` are set and do not contain `null`.

Note that `isset($var)` and `isset($var) == true` have the same effect, so the latter is somewhat redundant.

Update

The second part of your expression uses `empty()` like this:

empty ($_POST['search_term'] . $_POST['postcode']) == false

This is wrong for the same reasons as above. In fact, you don't need `empty()` here, because by that time you would have already checked whether the variables are set, so you can shortcut the complete expression like so:

isset($_POST['search_term'], $_POST['postcode']) && 
    $_POST['search_term'] && 
    $_POST['postcode']

Or using an equivalent expression:

!empty($_POST['search_term']) && !empty($_POST['postcode'])

Final thoughts

You should consider using `filter` functions to manage the inputs:

$data = filter_input_array(INPUT_POST, array(
    'search_term' => array(
        'filter' => FILTER_UNSAFE_RAW,
        'flags' => FILTER_NULL_ON_FAILURE,
    ),
    'postcode' => array(
        'filter' => FILTER_UNSAFE_RAW,
        'flags' => FILTER_NULL_ON_FAILURE,
    ),
));

if ($data === null || in_array(null, $data, true)) {
    // some fields are missing or their values didn't pass the filter
    die("You did something naughty");
}

// $data['search_term'] and $data['postcode'] contains the fields you want

Btw, you can customize your filters to check for various parts of the submitted values.

Problem

Original source