How to check whether the user uploaded a file in PHP?

You should use $_FILES[$form_name]['error']. It returns UPLOAD_ERR_NO_FILE if no file was uploaded. Full list: PHP: Error Messages Explained

function isUploadOkay($form_name, &$error_message) {
    if (!isset($_FILES[$form_name])) {
        $error_message = "No file upload with name '$form_name' in form.";
        return false;
    }
    $error = $_FILES[$form_name]['error'];

    // List at: http://php.net/manual/en/features.file-upload.errors.php
    if ($error != UPLOAD_ERR_OK) {
        switch ($error) {
            case UPLOAD_ERR_INI_SIZE:
                $error_message = 'The uploaded file exceeds the upload_max_filesize directive in php.ini.';
                break;

            case UPLOAD_ERR_FORM_SIZE:
                $error_message = 'The uploaded file exceeds the MAX_FILE_SIZE directive that was specified in the HTML form.';
                break;

            case UPLOAD_ERR_PARTIAL:
                $error_message = 'The uploaded file was only partially uploaded.';
                break;

            case UPLOAD_ERR_NO_FILE:
                $error_message = 'No file was uploaded.';
                break;

            case UPLOAD_ERR_NO_TMP_DIR:
                $error_message = 'Missing a temporary folder.';
                break;

            case UPLOAD_ERR_CANT_WRITE:
                $error_message = 'Failed to write file to disk.';
                break;

            case UPLOAD_ERR_EXTENSION:
                $error_message = 'A PHP extension interrupted the upload.';
                break;

            default:
                $error_message = 'Unknown error';
            break;
        }
        return false;
    }

    $error_message = null;
    return true;
}

@karim79 has the right answer, but I had to rewrite his example to suit my purposes. His example assumes that the name of the submitted field is known and can be hard coded in. I took that a step further and made a function that will tell me if any files were uploaded without having to know the name of the upload field.

/**
 * Tests all upload fields to determine whether any files were submitted.
 * 
 * @return boolean
 */
function files_uploaded() {

    // bail if there were no upload forms
   if(empty($_FILES))
        return false;

    // check for uploaded files
    $files = $_FILES['files']['tmp_name'];
    foreach( $files as $field_title => $temp_name ){
        if( !empty($temp_name) && is_uploaded_file( $temp_name )){
            // found one!
            return true;
        }
    }   
    // return false if no files were found
   return false;
}

This code worked for me. I am using multiple file uploads so I needed to check whether there has been any upload.

HTML part:

<input name="files[]" type="file" multiple="multiple" />

PHP part:

if(isset($_FILES['files']) ){  


foreach($_FILES['files']['tmp_name'] as $key => $tmp_name ){

      if(!empty($_FILES['files']['tmp_name'][$key])){

    //  things you want to do
    }
}

You can use is_uploaded_file():

if(!file_exists($_FILES['myfile']['tmp_name']) || !is_uploaded_file($_FILES['myfile']['tmp_name'])) {
    echo 'No upload';
}

From the docs:

Returns TRUE if the file named by filename was uploaded via HTTP POST. This is useful to help ensure that a malicious user hasn't tried to trick the script into working on files upon which it should not be working--for instance, /etc/passwd.

This sort of check is especially important if there is any chance that anything done with uploaded files could reveal their contents to the user, or even to other users on the same system.

EDIT: I'm using this in my FileUpload class, in case it helps:

public function fileUploaded()
{
    if(empty($_FILES)) {
        return false;       
    } 
    $this->file = $_FILES[$this->formField];
    if(!file_exists($this->file['tmp_name']) || !is_uploaded_file($this->file['tmp_name'])){
        $this->errors['FileNotExists'] = true;
        return false;
    }   
    return true;
}