PHP verify array elements are all empty

Question

I need to ensure that all the elements in my array are empty strings to process an action. The way I am currently doing it is incrementing a variable each time an element is an empty string. Then I check the value of that variable against a certain requirement N. If N is met, the action is processed. Below is the snippet of the code that checks for empty strings. I am not sure if this is the best way to do it and think there has to be a better way to do it because basically I am hard coding that value N. Can anybody else suggest another approach?

function checkErrorArray($ers) {
    $err_count = 0;
    foreach ($ers as &$value) {
        if ($value == '') {
            $err_count++;
        }
    }
    return $err_count;
}

Well as you already say it works, the only thing is that you could write it differently like just: return array_count_values($ers)[""]; — Rizier123
– Rizier123, Commented Mar 26, 2016 at 20:21

dev7 · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-26 20:38:45Z

3

Why don't you do:

function areAllEmpty($ers) {
    foreach ($ers as &$value) {
        //if a value is not empty, we return false and no need to continue iterating thru the array
        if (!empty($value)) return false;
    }
    //if got so far, then all must be empty
    return true;
}

It will not have to run through the whole array if a non-empty value is found.

You could also do a shorter version:

function areAllEmpty($ers) {
        $errs_str = implode('', $ers);//join all items into 1 string
        return empty($errs_str);
    }

Hope this helps.

edited Mar 26, 2016 at 20:38

answered Mar 26, 2016 at 20:21

dev7

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Comments

AbraCadaver · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-26 20:31:27Z

2

Just filter it and if it is empty then ! will return true if not empty it will return false:

return !array_filter($ers);

Or if you actually need the count of empty elements then:

return count(array_diff($ers, array_filter($ers)));

edited Mar 26, 2016 at 20:31

answered Mar 26, 2016 at 20:26

AbraCadaver

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