no empty (zero) string predicate in Elisp

[Emanuel Berg]

In one of my w3m extensions [1] I have

    (defun empty-string-p (str)
      (string= str "") )

which obviously has nothing to do with w3m. Well, it's
been known to happen. I can live with having it there.

However, the next time I want to use it in some other
file the byte-compiler tells me

    In end of data: wrap-search.el:98:1:Warning: the
    function `empty-string-p' is not known to
    be defined.

OK, I get that away with

    (require 'w3m-unisearch) ; get empty-string-p

But now I have a mention of w3m, in a file that has
nothing to do with w3m, to get empty-string-p, which
has nothing to do with w3m!

Of course, I can do yet a third file -
my-string-predicate.el - and require that from both
files. But I feel I shouldn't have to. Such basic
things shouldn't have to be solved on a Joe Hacker
basis. It should be included. And not in ELPA,
in Emacs!

I'll report this as a bug unless someone presents
really convincing stuff why it shouldn't be included.
Or, if there is something equivalent - equivalent in
the syntactic sense, I mean - I am aware of

   (= (length str) 0)

and

   (equal "" str)

but it should be a binary operator.

[1] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/emacs-init/w3m/w3m-unisearch.el

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