What is the significance of the 'empty' function in PHP and what are the potential pitfalls associated with its usage?

The 'empty' function in PHP is used to determine whether a variable is empty or not. It returns true if the variable is empty (i.e., it does not exist, is null, or is an empty string), and false otherwise. One potential pitfall of using the 'empty' function is that it can produce unexpected results when used with variables that are not explicitly set or initialized.

// Example of using the 'empty' function with caution
$var = '';
if (empty($var)) {
    echo "Variable is empty";
} else {
    echo "Variable is not empty";
}