Ubuntu Unleashed 2014 Edition: Covering 13.10 and 14.04,Ninth Edition

Miscellaneous

Several functions do not fall under the other categories and so are covered here. The first one is isset(), which takes one or more variables as its parameters and returns true if they have been set. It is important to note that a variable with a value set to something that would be evaluated to false—such as 0 or an empty string—still returns true from isset() because it does not check the value of the variable. It merely checks that it is set; hence, the name.

The unset() function also takes one or more variables as its parameters, simply deleting the variable and freeing up the memory. With these two, you can write a script that checks for the existence of a variable and, if it exists, deletes it (see Listing 42.5).

LISTING 42.5 ...