finding the first empty input box

[Saar123]

I have many input fields and I need to ascertain the first empty input field. at the moment I'm checking each one individually and if its not empty move on to the next one. But I was wondering if anyone knew of a more efficient way of doing this:\[code\]if(empty($a)){$a=$name;}elseif(empty($b)){$b=$name;}elseif(empty($c)){$c=$name;}else ............if(empty($z)){$z=$name;}else{$message="all boxes are filled"}; \[/code\]