Question

I’d like to know whether simply using PHP’s error suppression syntax is a faster and simpler alternative to array_key_exists where it is not certain that a particular key exists.

That is, instead of:

if (array_key_exists($array, $key)) {
    $myval = $array[$key];
    [... do something with $myval ...]
}

Simply use:

if ($myval = @$array[$key]) {
    [... do something with $myval ...]
}

Seems like this is both more efficient and less wordy, but perhaps it introduces subtle problems or edge-cases that I’m not seeing yet.

What are the potential problems with this approach?

Answer 1

BTW you can also use isset().

The error suppression operator in PHP also slows it down a lot, to about half the usual speed.

And finally you will eventually run into a case where you are supressing errors, and discover that you typoed and $aray doesn’t exist either, which you will never even find out since you are blocking all errors.