From: Mark Hubbart <discord@...>
Date: 2004-05-12T05:41:40+09:00
Subject: Re: Proposal: Object#send(nil) -> self


On May 11, 2004, at 9:04 AM, Gavin Sinclair wrote:

> A quick one.  I see some sense in Object#send accepting 'nil' as the
> message.  You send no message, you get the plain object.  Does anyone
> agree?
>
> #send is clearly useful when you want to vary the message sent to an
> object based on some condition.  Sometimes the default condition is to
> send no message, but that can't be coded as elegantly.
>
> For example:
>
>   date_colour_msg =
>     case Date.today - date
>     when 0 then :red
>     when 1 then :yellow
>     when 2..5 then :green
>     else
>       nil   # Default: whatever the normal colour is.
>     end
>
>   date_str = date.to_s.send(date_colour_msg)
>
> That example's not too contrived, is it?

While the example seems *somewhat* contrived :) , I can see situations 
where it would be handy... And since #sending nil currently raises an 
error, I doubt it would break anyone's code. I would consider it a good 
rcr, myself.

class Object
   alias no_nil_send send
   def send(*args)
     args.first ? no_nil_send(*args) : self
   end
end

Something like this, I assume?

cheers,
--Mark