title: How to test if a string variable in Robot Framework is empty?
body: <p>How to test if a string variable in Robot Framework is empty?</p>
  <p>My first naïve attempt looked like this:</p>
  <pre><code>Run Keyword If  ${myVar}!=${EMPTY}
  </code></pre>
  <p>but it failed:</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>Evaluating expression '!=' failed: SyntaxError: unexpected EOF while parsing (, line 1)</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>I then found this <a href="https://github.com/robotframework/robotframework/issues/1795" rel="nofollow noreferrer">issue</a> at Github but it didn't suggest a solution, just that the error message was unclear. An alternative solution was presented <a href="https://groups.google.com/d/msg/robotframework-users/XBy6RX12vfA/xPOjcKcOI_wJ" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>:</p>
  <pre><code>${length}=    Get Length    ${Portfolio_ste}
  Run Keyword If    ${length}    Go To Edit Portfolio
  </code></pre>
  <p>but is this really the best practice?</p>
  <p>(The context is that I use a variable argument list and if a certain variable contains a value something should be done, otherwise just ignore it)</p>