Question

I have this array:

--- !map:ActiveSupport::HashWithIndifferentAccess 
search: !map:ActiveSupport::HashWithIndifferentAccess 
  address: test

I apply the following to it:

address = params['search']['address']
if address
  # do something
end

If there is no search object and no address object, this code raises an 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.[]

What’s the way in ruby to handle something like that?

Answer 1

Firstly…

[…] for example i have this array:

Just to clarify that it is actually a specialised Hash.

Secondly…

You can do something like this:

if params[:search] and params[:search][:address]
  # do something with address
else
  # no value given
end