// Explanation for why we only check the is_unittest element: Prior to adding that check, there was no check and so any $params passed in would have been overwritten. Just in case somebody is passing in some non-null params and that broken code would have inadvertently been working, we can maintain backwards compatibility by only checking for the is_unittest parameter, and so that broken code will still work. At the same time this allows unit tests to pass in a $params without it getting overwritten. See also PR #2077 for some discussion of when the $params parameter was added as a passed in variable.