Comments on: MrProper: Cleaner blocks in Ruby

By: Pablo Villalba

Pablo Villalba — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:47:32 +0000

I agree there, if_valued would be better naming. However, Array(variable) is a good way of avoiding nil checks, so I guess we should rather use that!

By: Pablo Villalba

Pablo Villalba — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:47:32 +0000

I agree there, if_valued would be better naming. However, Array(variable) is a good way of avoiding nil checks, so I guess we should rather use that!

By: avdi

avdi — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:32:30 +0000

Thanks for the linkage. Note that since Ruby already provides a 'defined?' operator with slightly different semantics, the use of the term “defined” to mean defined-and-not-nil might be a bit confusing. Something like 'if_not_nil' or 'if_valued' might be more precise.

By: Pablo Villalba

Pablo Villalba — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:02:25 +0000

Mike, that would be much cleaner, but it could break other Ruby code (frameworks, plugins) relying on exceptions that need to be raised when an unexpected nil gets passed.

if_defined assures that you are expecting the possibility of receiving a nil, so it's safer and explains what's behind the scenes.

By: Mike Berrow

Mike Berrow — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:59:01 +0000

But why not just do ...

class NilClass
def each
[]
end
end