PHP. Руководство по PHP. 2005
isset
isset
Description
bool isset (mixed var [, mixed var [, ...]])Returns TRUE if var exists; FALSE otherwise.
If a variable has been unset with unset(), it will no longer be set. isset() will return FALSE if testing a variable that has been set to NULL. Also note that a NULL byte ("\0") is not equivalent to the PHP NULL constant.
Warning: isset() only works with variables as passing anything else will result in a parse error. For checking if constants are set use the defined() function.