Question

I’m cycling through several different attributes looking for something not set to ""

To do this I wrote :

def email
  begin
    if email1 != ""
      email1 
    elsif email2 != ""
      email2
    elsif email3 != ""
      email3
    else
      Fail
    end
  rescue
    "Undefined"
  end
end

Basically, if it fails the logic on the first statement, I’d like it to be rescued.

Perhaps rescue isn’t the right decision. What would you recommend?

Answer 1

First off, def is an implicit begin, so you can save yourself that. However, from your limited description, I think this should work for you:

[email1, email2, email3].reject(&:empty?).first || "undefined"

It either returns the first set email address or “undefined”. My version reads a bit more like how you would describe the problem (take the first set email address or return “undefined”), mu’s version is a bit more compact and probably what I’d use.