From: Farrel Lifson <farrel.lifson@...>
Date: 2006-11-01T21:39:26+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby programming best practice

On 01/11/06, Shannon Fang <xrfang@hotmail.com> wrote:
> As a dynamic language, Ruby is much more flexible and easier than other
> language I use, for example, Delphi. However, there is a "intrinsic" problem
> in ruby programming -- a typical error I get again and again:
>
> private method `split' called for nil:NilClass
>
> The following statement:
>
> array.pop.split(',')
>
> will generate this error if array is empty. Of course I can use rescue
> Exception statement, as a matter of fact, I do use that. Even after 4-5
> years, some of my program still generate these kind of error occasionally.
>
> Real-world situation is just too complicated. How do we write robust AND
> elegant code, and let our thinking smooth rather than considering exceptions
> all the time?
>
> Experts, please tell us, your best practice, facing this "intrinsic" problem
> of dynamic languages...
>
> Thanks,
> Shannon
>
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There's a number of ways to handle this. If the array is possibly
empty you could check beforehand and return a default result
 array.empty? ? ['','',''] : array.pop.split(',')
If the code that handles the split result can handle empty arrays then
you could just
 array.pop.to_s.split(',')
or
 String(array.pop).split(',')

Farrel