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

https://stackoverflow.com/a/9824943/14731 contains a better answer (one that is more readable and works with set -o nounset enabled). It works roughly like this:

if [ -n "${VAR-}" ]; then
    echo "VAR is set and is not empty"
elif [ "${VAR+DEFINED_BUT_EMPTY}" = "DEFINED_BUT_EMPTY" ]; then
    echo "VAR is set, but empty"
else
    echo "VAR is not set"
fi