From: patrick-may@... (Patrick May)
Date: 2002-07-09T06:44:57+09:00
Subject: Re: Pre-RCR... nil.empty?

Dave Thomas <Dave@PragmaticProgrammer.com> wrote in message news:<m24rfcb5e7.fsf@zip.local.thomases.com>...
> 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

This is related to the way cgi handles multiple parameters.  Your
first test, string.nil? is necessary b/c cgi['field'] returns an
array, which may be empty.

There was discussion starting from [ruby-talk: 39898].  In [ruby-talk:
39962], Wakou Aoyama made this (excellant) suggestion:

> cgi.rb has undocumented method "CGI#param".
>
> cgi.param["name"]    # == cgi.params["name"].join("\0")
>
> now    : cgi["name"] == cgi.params["name"]
> future?: cgi["name"] == cgi.param["name"]

If Wakou changes to this, then I believe string.nil? will be
unnecessary.

~ Patrick