Question: I have three variables:

```
$var1
$var2
$var3

```

I'm actually looking for the best way to check if **only one** of these three variables is not empty and the **two others** are empty.

Is that possible to do this with one `if` only? If not, then what's the best way?

The variables all contain text.

Answer: 
You can convert variable into array and exclude empty variables using `array_filter()`. Then use `count()` after the filter.

```
if(count(array_filter(array($var1,$var2,$var3)))==1){
  //only 1 variable is not empty
}

```

Check [Fiddle link](https://eval.in/642080)
Bitwise XOR is great for this:

```
$var1 ^ $var2 ^ $var3

```

You *might* have trouble if the variables don't cast to boolean easily, in which case you'd need to do `empty($var)` on each of them.

Boom. Zero `if`s.

**Update**

Oops, if they are *all* not empty, true ^ true ^ true == true

You'll need to check against all of them being true:

```
($var1 ^ $var2 ^ $var3) && !($var1 && $var2 && $var3)

```