Question

I have a text value in my AR model which defaults to null. I want to check the value for whether it is either not nil or not the empty string.

<% if !item.public_notes.empty? && !item.public_notes.nil? %>
  <%=item.public_notes %>
<% end %>

here’s the error:

ActionView::Template::Error (You have a nil object when you didn't expect it!
You might have expected an instance of Array.
The error occurred while evaluating nil.empty?):

If set to null, the attribute comes back as nil and errors out on the first case. It seems like I shouldn’t have to nest these. What is the proper way to check in the view layer? Is the error pointing to issue mentioned above?

thx

Answer 1

I would use unless, and the rails helper blank? (which checks if it’s nil? or empty?)

<% unless item.public_notes.blank? %>
  <%= item.public_notes %>
<% end %>