How to tell if a string is not defined in a Bash shell script

Question

If I want to check for the null string I would do

[ -z $mystr ]

but what if I want to check whether the variable has been defined at all? O

Answer 1

A summary of tests.

[ -n "$var" ] && echo "var is set and not empty"
[ -z "$var" ] && echo "var is unset or empty"
[ "${var+x}" = "x" ] && echo "var is set"  # may or may not be empty
[ -n "${var+x}" ] && echo "var is set"  # may or may not be empty
[ -z "${var+x}" ] && echo "var is unset"
[ -z "${var-x}" ] && echo "var is set and empty"