I often find myself needing to write code with the following logical pattern:
$foo = isset($bar) ? $bar : $baz;
I know about the ?: syntax:
$foo = $bar ?: $baz;
...which, on the surface, appears to be what I'm looking for; however, it throws an undefined notice index when $bar is not set. It also uses the same logic as empty(), meaning that "empty" values like FALSE, 0, "0", etc. don't pass. Hence, it's not really equivalent.
Is there a shorter way of writing that code without throwing a notice when $bar is not set?
Edit:
To make it a bit more clear why I'm looking for a shortcut syntax, here's a better example:
$name = isset($employee->getName())
? $employee->getName()
: '<unknown>';
In this case, $employee might be an object from a 3rd-party library, and it might be a valid scenario that its name might be NULL. I'd like to set variable $name to the returned name (if there is one), but some sensible default if there isn't.
If the method call is more complex than just a getter, then the example becomes even more verbose, since we have to cache the result:
$bar = $some->reallyExpensiveOperation();
$foo = isset($bar) ? $bar : $baz;