Is there a shortcut for the "isset construct"?

Question

I'm writing quite often this line of code:

$myParam = isset($params['myParam']) ? $params['myParam'] : 'defaultValue';

Typically, it makes the line very long for nested arrays.

Can I make it shorter?

Answer 1

function getOr(&$var, $default) {
    if (isset($var)) {
        return $var;
    } else {
        return $default;
    }
}

$myParam = getOr($params['myParam'], 'defaultValue');

Be sure to pass the variable by reference though, otherwise the code will produce a E_NOTICE. Also the use of if/else instead of a ternary operator is intentional here, so the zval can be shared if you are using PHP < 5.4.0RC1.