Description:
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If the value is a string of "0", than it's not a true zero right?  The 
behavior of empty() in this case is utterly absurd.  If you can't fix 
empty, there needs to be a new function to provide a better way to 
test on this than writing our own special functions to work around a 
PHP bug.

$a = 0;
$b = '';
$b = '0'

empty($a) returns true (correctly, but not helpfully)
empty($b) returns true (correctly)
empty($a) returns true (incorrectly, since it actually does have a 
value)

Of course, isset() returns true for all three (correctly, but not 
helpfully).  This means there's no way to find out that $a and $c have 
values I can use and $b doesn't without writing my own special 
function or if statement.  EXTREMELY frustrating.