PHP If Statement if (!$_POST) - What does !$_POST mean?

Question

PHP If Statement if (!$_POST) - What does !$_POST mean?

For instance, in some legacy code I'm looking at, the code reads:

    <form action="paypalorders.php" method="POST">
         <input type="hidden" name="orderList" value="' . $orderList . '">
         <input type="submit" value="Archive">
    </form>';
if (!$_POST) {
    file_put_contents('/orders.txt', $output_line1);
}

I've looked at a bunch of other threads and haven't seen this exact question asked, so I'm trying to find out what it is. I've seen threads that format it like this:

if(!empty($_POST)) {

But not quite the same as what I'm looking for. Is it the same thing, just shorthand? I'm not sure, which is why I'm asking. I've Googled around and looked at a handful of threads and I'm still not sure.

Thank you.

Answer 1

The ! (not) logical operator returns true if the argument on its right-hand side is not true. It forces the argument to be evaluated as a boolean. In this case, when the $_POST array is evaluated as a boolean it will evaluate as true if it is not empty and false if it is. (See converting to boolean.)

if (!$_POST) { should be a safe way to detect whether or not anything is in $_POST if you want to do that. empty isn't necessary in that case because superglobals are always set, and since you aren't referring to a specific key, you don't need to worry about an undefined index notice.

---

I think it's also worth mentioning that if the only point of the check is to see what type of request was sent, it is probably better to just check the request method directly, because !$_POST does not mean the request wasn't a post, since a post request can be empty.

Answer 2

Since $_POST is an array, if it's empty his value is null, so if(!$_POST) would look like this:

if(!null){
  //code 
}

The following code returns true or false, but the objective of both is the same.

if(!empty($_POST)){
  //code
}

Hope it helps you!

Answer 3

(bool)$array evaluates to true if $array contains elements, and false if it is empty.

Since $_POST is an array, !$_POST returns true if $_POST is empty.

Another way to interpret this, you are performing conditional tasks for the case where this page was not reached through a HTTP POST method.