Check if value isset and null

See Best way to test for a variable's existence in PHP; isset() is clearly broken

 if( array_key_exists('foo', $GLOBALS) && is_null($foo)) // true & true => true
 if( array_key_exists('bar', $GLOBALS) && is_null($bar)) // false &  => false

If you are dealing with object properties which might have a value of NULL you can use: property_exists() instead of isset()

<?php

class myClass {
    public $mine;
    private $xpto;
    static protected $test;

    function test() {
        var_dump(property_exists($this, 'xpto')); //true
    }
}

var_dump(property_exists('myClass', 'mine'));   //true
var_dump(property_exists(new myClass, 'mine')); //true
var_dump(property_exists('myClass', 'xpto'));   //true, as of PHP 5.3.0
var_dump(property_exists('myClass', 'bar'));    //false
var_dump(property_exists('myClass', 'test'));   //true, as of PHP 5.3.0
myClass::test();

?>

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

IIRC, you can use get_defined_vars() for this:

$foo = NULL;
$vars = get_defined_vars();
if (array_key_exists('bar', $vars)) {}; // Should evaluate to FALSE
if (array_key_exists('foo', $vars)) {}; // Should evaluate to TRUE