From: TAKAHASHI Masayoshi <maki@...>
Date: 2002-07-07T13:11:30+09:00
Subject: Re: Pre-RCR... nil.empty?

Dave Thomas <Dave@PragmaticProgrammer.com> wrote:
> Working with CGI forms and databases, it's something of a pain having
> to do
> 
>    string = cgi['field'][0]
> 
>    if string.nil? || string.empty?
>       error "Please specify a value for 'field'"
>    end
> 
>    etc etc...

  string = cgi['field'][0].to_s

or

  string.to_s.empty?

is good (but not the best) way, I think.

# We need something like CGI#get_value_as_string(key)?


In generally (especially in database), NULL and empty string
are not the same. So we should be careful to deal with nil.


Regards,

TAKAHASHI 'Maki' Masayoshi     E-mail: maki@rubycolor.org
 "what is seen is empty, what is empty is seen."
   --- HAN NYA SHIN GYO (The Heart of Prajna Paramita Sutra)