From: Xavier Noria <fxn@...>
Date: 2008-08-30T12:52:12+09:00
Subject: Re: assignment operator that treats empty and nil as the same thing

On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 5:00 AM, RichardOnRails
<RichardDummyMailbox58407@uscomputergurus.com> wrote:

> Maybe I can redeem myself: Matt gave you a great solution in reopening
> the Hash definition.  I recommend a minor improvement as follows:
>
> class Hash
>  alias_method "orig_fetch", "[]"
>  def [](what)
>      result = orig_fetch(what)
>      result = nil if result == ''
>  end
> end

In my view that's abusing open classes. Ruby has well-defined boolean
semantics, and Hash#[] is a fundamental method. People have
expectations about those ones.

In this case I think it could be better just to program explicitly
your particular logic, either by hand, or in an clear separate method
set_if_blank(key, value). I believe that one may be added to Hash if
it deserves it in your app.