Checking if a variable is not nil and not zero in ruby - ruby

I am using the following code to check if a variable is not nil and not zero
if(discount != nil && discount != 0)
...
end
Is there a better way to do this?

unless discount.nil? || discount == 0
# ...
end

class Object
def nil_zero?
self.nil? || self == 0
end
end
# which lets you do
nil.nil_zero? # returns true
0.nil_zero? # returns true
1.nil_zero? # returns false
"a".nil_zero? # returns false
unless discount.nil_zero?
# do stuff...
end
Beware of the usual disclaimers... great power/responsibility, monkey patching leading to the dark side etc.

ok, after 5 years have passed....
if discount.try :nonzero?
...
end
It's important to note that try is defined in the ActiveSupport gem, so it is not available in plain ruby.

From Ruby 2.3.0 onward, you can combine the safe navigation operator (&.) with Numeric#nonzero?. &. returns nil if the instance was nil and nonzero? - if the number was 0:
if discount&.nonzero?
# ...
end
Or postfix:
do_something if discount&.nonzero?

unless [nil, 0].include?(discount)
# ...
end

You could do this:
if (!discount.nil? && !discount.zero?)
The order is important here, because if discount is nil, then it will not have a zero? method. Ruby's short-circuit evaluation should prevent it from trying to evaluate discount.zero?, however, if discount is nil.

if (discount||0) != 0
#...
end

You can convert your empty row to integer value and check zero?.
"".to_i.zero? => true
nil.to_i.zero? => true

if discount and discount != 0
..
end
update, it will false for discount = false

You can take advantage of the NilClass provided #to_i method, which will return zero for nil values:
unless discount.to_i.zero?
# Code here
end
If discount can be fractional numbers, you can use #to_f instead, to prevent the number from being rounded to zero.

def is_nil_and_zero(data)
data.blank? || data == 0
end
If we pass "" it will return false whereas blank? returns true.
Same is the case when data = false
blank? returns true for nil, false, empty, or a whitespace string.
So it's better to use blank? method to avoid empty string as well.

I prefer using a more cleaner approach :
val.to_i.zero?
val.to_i will return a 0 if val is a nil,
after that, all we need to do is check whether the final value is a zero.

Yes, we do have a clean way in ruby.
discount.to_f.zero?
This check handles good amount of cases i.e. discount may be nil, discount may be int 0, discount may be float 0.0, discount may be string "0.0", "0".

When dealing with a database record, I like to initialize all empty values with 0, using the migration helper:
add_column :products, :price, :integer, default: 0

if discount.nil? || discount == 0
[do something]
end

You could initialize discount to 0 as long as your code is guaranteed not to try and use it before it is initialized. That would remove one check I suppose, I can't think of anything else.

Alternative solution is to use Refinements, like so:
module Nothingness
refine Numeric do
alias_method :nothing?, :zero?
end
refine NilClass do
alias_method :nothing?, :nil?
end
end
using Nothingness
if discount.nothing?
# do something
end

I believe the following is good enough for ruby code. I don't think I could write a unit test that shows any difference between this and the original.
if discount != 0
end

Related

Shopify Shipping Script Discount on Customer Tag

I have a Shopify Plus account in which I am attempting to add a new condition to my Shipping Script that controls what shipping methods are displayed to customers. Specifically, I want to give customers with a specific tag access to free shipping. To control that
def freeItUp
index = -1
if Input.cart.customer != nil and Input.cart.customer.tags != nil
Input.cart.customer.tags.index do |tag|
return tag.upcase == "ALWAYSFREE"
end
end
return index > -1
end
shippingMethodToDelete = (condition1 or condition2 or freeItUp) ? "UPS" : "FREE"
Output.shipping_rates = Input.shipping_rates.delete_if do |shipping_rate|
puts shipping_rate.name
shipping_rate.name.upcase.start_with?(shippingMethodToDelete)
end
However, I keep getting the following error
fiber required for enumerator (Your Cart)
fiber required for enumerator (Empty Cart)
I'm not terribly familiar with Ruby, but I'm using the same code block (above) in Line Item scripts with no issues. According to the documentation I believe I'm not trying to access properties that don't exist. Any thoughts/help would be greatly appreciated.
Can you try:
def always_free_tag?
return false if Input.cart.customer.nil? || Input.cart.customer.tags.empty?
Input.cart.customer.tags.any? do |tag|
tag.upcase == "ALWAYSFREE"
end
end
shippingMethodToDelete = (condition1 or condition2 or always_free_tag?) ? "UPS" : "FREE"
Output.shipping_rates = Input.shipping_rates.delete_if do |shipping_rate|
puts shipping_rate.name
shipping_rate.name.upcase.start_with?(shippingMethodToDelete)
end
Also, can you share more of the stack trace and what line it points to?
Edit: Great! Glad that worked. I think your issue is you were using Array#index which yields an index (integer) to the block (this line: Input.cart.customer.tags.index). You're then calling #upcase on Numeric which isn't a method. If you instead did this it would work as expected:
Input.cart.customer.tags.index do |i|
return true if Input.cart.customer.tags[i].upcase == "ALWAYSFREE"
end
The other issue is that in ruby only nil and false are falsy in ruby, so your condition in shippingMethodToDelete likely wasn't returning the correct value. Instead, I changed it so it always returns a boolean that way we can be sure ALWAYSFREE is searched for and evaluated correctly. I think you were really close but take a look at Enumerable#any for more examples.

Ruby code to check for Integer [duplicate]

I need a function, is_an_integer, where
"12".is_an_integer? returns true.
"blah".is_an_integer? returns false.
How can I do this in Ruby? I would write a regex but I'm assuming there is a helper for this that I am not aware of.
Well, here's the easy way:
class String
def is_integer?
self.to_i.to_s == self
end
end
>> "12".is_integer?
=> true
>> "blah".is_integer?
=> false
I don't agree with the solutions that provoke an exception to convert the string - exceptions are not control flow, and you might as well do it the right way. That said, my solution above doesn't deal with non-base-10 integers. So here's the way to do with without resorting to exceptions:
class String
def integer?
[ # In descending order of likeliness:
/^[-+]?[1-9]([0-9]*)?$/, # decimal
/^0[0-7]+$/, # octal
/^0x[0-9A-Fa-f]+$/, # hexadecimal
/^0b[01]+$/ # binary
].each do |match_pattern|
return true if self =~ match_pattern
end
return false
end
end
You can use regular expressions. Here is the function with #janm's suggestions.
class String
def is_i?
!!(self =~ /\A[-+]?[0-9]+\z/)
end
end
An edited version according to comment from #wich:
class String
def is_i?
/\A[-+]?\d+\z/ === self
end
end
In case you only need to check positive numbers
if !/\A\d+\z/.match(string_to_check)
#Is not a positive number
else
#Is all good ..continue
end
You can use Integer(str) and see if it raises:
def is_num?(str)
!!Integer(str)
rescue ArgumentError, TypeError
false
end
It should be pointed out that while this does return true for "01", it does not for "09", simply because 09 would not be a valid integer literal. If that's not the behaviour you want, you can add 10 as a second argument to Integer, so the number is always interpreted as base 10.
Ruby 2.6.0 enables casting to an integer without raising an exception, and will return nil if the cast fails. And since nil mostly behaves like false in Ruby, you can easily check for an integer like so:
if Integer(my_var, exception: false)
# do something if my_var can be cast to an integer
end
"12".match(/^(\d)+$/) # true
"1.2".match(/^(\d)+$/) # false
"dfs2".match(/^(\d)+$/) # false
"13422".match(/^(\d)+$/) # true
You can do a one liner:
str = ...
int = Integer(str) rescue nil
if int
int.times {|i| p i}
end
or even
int = Integer(str) rescue false
Depending on what you are trying to do you can also directly use a begin end block with rescue clause:
begin
str = ...
i = Integer(str)
i.times do |j|
puts j
end
rescue ArgumentError
puts "Not an int, doing something else"
end
class String
def integer?
Integer(self)
return true
rescue ArgumentError
return false
end
end
It isn't prefixed with is_. I find that silly on questionmark methods, I like "04".integer? a lot better than "foo".is_integer?.
It uses the sensible solution by sepp2k, which passes for "01" and such.
Object oriented, yay.
The Best and Simple way is using Float
val = Float "234" rescue nil
Float "234" rescue nil #=> 234.0
Float "abc" rescue nil #=> nil
Float "234abc" rescue nil #=> nil
Float nil rescue nil #=> nil
Float "" rescue nil #=> nil
Integer is also good but it will return 0 for Integer nil
I prefer:
config/initializers/string.rb
class String
def number?
Integer(self).is_a?(Integer)
rescue ArgumentError, TypeError
false
end
end
and then:
[218] pry(main)> "123123123".number?
=> true
[220] pry(main)> "123 123 123".gsub(/ /, '').number?
=> true
[222] pry(main)> "123 123 123".number?
=> false
or check phone number:
"+34 123 456 789 2".gsub(/ /, '').number?
A much simpler way could be
/(\D+)/.match('1221').nil? #=> true
/(\D+)/.match('1a221').nil? #=> false
/(\D+)/.match('01221').nil? #=> true
Personally I like the exception approach although I would make it a little more terse:
class String
def integer?(str)
!!Integer(str) rescue false
end
end
However, as others have already stated, this doesn't work with Octal strings.
This might not be suitable for all cases simplely using:
"12".to_i => 12
"blah".to_i => 0
might also do for some.
If it's a number and not 0 it will return a number. If it returns 0 it's either a string or 0.
def isint(str)
return !!(str =~ /^[-+]?[1-9]([0-9]*)?$/)
end
Here's my solution:
# /initializers/string.rb
class String
IntegerRegex = /^(\d)+$/
def integer?
!!self.match(IntegerRegex)
end
end
# any_model_or_controller.rb
'12345'.integer? # true
'asd34'.integer? # false
And here's how it works:
/^(\d)+$/is regex expression for finding digits in any string. You can test your regex expressions and results at http://rubular.com/.
We save it in a constant IntegerRegex to avoid unnecessary memory allocation everytime we use it in the method.
integer? is an interrogative method which should return true or false.
match is a method on string which matches the occurrences as per the given regex expression in argument and return the matched values or nil.
!! converts the result of match method into equivalent boolean.
And declaring the method in existing String class is monkey patching, which doesn't change anything in existing String functionalities, but just adds another method named integer? on any String object.
Ruby 2.4 has Regexp#match?: (with a ?)
def integer?(str)
/\A[+-]?\d+\z/.match? str
end
For older Ruby versions, there's Regexp#===. And although direct use of the case equality operator should generally be avoided, it looks very clean here:
def integer?(str)
/\A[+-]?\d+\z/ === str
end
integer? "123" # true
integer? "-123" # true
integer? "+123" # true
integer? "a123" # false
integer? "123b" # false
integer? "1\n2" # false
Expanding on #rado's answer above one could also use a ternary statement to force the return of true or false booleans without the use of double bangs. Granted, the double logical negation version is more terse, but probably harder to read for newcomers (like me).
class String
def is_i?
self =~ /\A[-+]?[0-9]+\z/ ? true : false
end
end
For more generalised cases (including numbers with decimal point),
you can try the following method:
def number?(obj)
obj = obj.to_s unless obj.is_a? String
/\A[+-]?\d+(\.[\d]+)?\z/.match(obj)
end
You can test this method in an irb session:
(irb)
>> number?(7)
=> #<MatchData "7" 1:nil>
>> !!number?(7)
=> true
>> number?(-Math::PI)
=> #<MatchData "-3.141592653589793" 1:".141592653589793">
>> !!number?(-Math::PI)
=> true
>> number?('hello world')
=> nil
>> !!number?('hello world')
=> false
For a detailed explanation of the regex involved here, check out this blog article :)
One liner in string.rb
def is_integer?; true if Integer(self) rescue false end
I'm not sure if this was around when this question is asked but
for anyone that stumbles across this post, the simplest way is:
var = "12"
var.is_a?(Integer) # returns false
var.is_a?(String) # returns true
var = 12
var.is_a?(Integer) # returns true
var.is_a?(String) # returns false
.is_a? will work with any object.

Ruby way to check if a string is not blank?

What's the best way to check if a variable is not blank in an else if condition in Ruby (not Rails)?
elsif not variable.to_s.empty?
# do something
end
or
elsif !variable.to_s.empty?
# do something
end
or
elsif variable.to_s.length > 0
# do something
end
string = ""
unless string.to_s.strip.empty?
# ...
end
I just found out that ''.empty? returns true but ' '.empty? returns false. Even to_s.length for ' ' is not zero.
Maybe it is better to use strip as ' '.strip.empty?
You can use either
unless var.empty?
#do sth
end
or
unless var == ""
#do sth
end
or all of these with if and a negator !.
The source of the empty? method is analogous to the following:
def empty?
return length == 0
end
So, you can safely use
any_string.length != 0
Anyway, using that code inside an else if is a bit verbose, I would encourage you to define the present? method inside the String class.
class String
def present?
!empty?
end
end
Now you can write your code the following way:
if some_condition
# do something
elsif variable.to_s.present?
# do something else
end
This way you get a clear code, without using negations or unless who are hard to read.
Of course, there is one problem here, I took the present? name (and method) from Rails. present? returns true if the object is not blank, but strings with tabs or spaces (white characters) are considered blanks. So, this present? will return true to for the following strings:
"".present? # => false
" ".present? # => true
"\t\n\r".present? # => true
" blah ".present? # => true
It depends on what you want, high chances are that you want to get true for the first 3 strings, and false for the later. You could use #RamanSM approach and use strip to avoid empty spaces
class String
def present?
!strip.empty?
end
end
now, present? returns false for strings with white spaces
"".present? # => false
" ".present? # => false
"\t\n\r".present? # => false
" blah ".present? # => true
Note: Consider that String.present? is present in the ActiveSupport library (which ships with rails) if you add ActiveSupport or use Rails you should use ActiveSupport implementation instead.
If you prefer if to unless...
If you know your variable will be a String...if str[0]
With nil check...if str && str[0] OR if str&.[](0) (I prefer the latter but it might look odd to some people and requires Ruby >= 2.3).
Also...I'd be very careful about calling #to_s on anything because you could end up with unexpected results. If str turns out to be something that you weren't expecting...
str = false
str.to_s[0] # => 'f' (i.e. truthy)
str.to_s.empty? # => false
str = nil
str.to_s[0] # => nil (i.e. falsey)
str.to_s.empty? # => true
I think this caution applies to usage of #to_s in the other answer here as well. Exceptions can be your friend.
For the string (say abc) which is not defined/undefined we should check for abc.nil?
otherwise abc.blank? will throw (NoMethodError) undefined method empty? for nil:NilClass error

What does !! mean in ruby?

Just wondering what !! is in Ruby.
Not not.
It's used to convert a value to a boolean:
!!nil #=> false
!!"abc" #=> true
!!false #=> false
It's usually not necessary to use though since the only false values to Ruby are nil and false, so it's usually best to let that convention stand.
Think of it as
!(!some_val)
One thing that is it used for legitimately is preventing a huge chunk of data from being returned. For example you probably don't want to return 3MB of image data in your has_image? method, or you may not want to return your entire user object in the logged_in? method. Using !! converts these objects to a simple true/false.
It returns true if the object on the right is not nil and not false, false if it is nil or false
def logged_in?
!!#current_user
end
! means negate boolean state, two !s is nothing special, other than a double negation.
!true == false
# => true
It is commonly used to force a method to return a boolean. It will detect any kind of truthiness, such as string, integers and what not, and turn it into a boolean.
!"wtf"
# => false
!!"wtf"
# => true
A more real use case:
def title
"I return a string."
end
def title_exists?
!!title
end
This is useful when you want to make sure that a boolean is returned. IMHO it's kind of pointless, though, seeing that both if 'some string' and if true is the exact same flow, but some people find it useful to explicitly return a boolean.
Note that this idiom exists in other programming languages as well. C didn't have an intrinsic bool type, so all booleans were typed as int instead, with canonical values of 0 or 1. Takes this example (parentheses added for clarity):
!(1234) == 0
!(0) == 1
!(!(1234)) == 1
The "not-not" syntax converts any non-zero integer to 1, the canonical boolean true value.
In general, though, I find it much better to put in a reasonable comparison than to use this uncommon idiom:
int x = 1234;
if (!!x); // wtf mate
if (x != 0); // obvious
It's useful if you need to do an exclusive or. Copying from Matt Van Horn's answer with slight modifications:
1 ^ true
TypeError: can't convert true into Integer
!!1 ^ !!true
=> false
I used it to ensure two variables were either both nil, or both not nil.
raise "Inconsistency" if !!a ^ !!b
It is "double-negative", but the practice is being discouraged. If you're using rubocop, you'll see it complain on such code with a Style/DoubleNegation violation.
The rationale states:
As this is both cryptic and usually redundant, it should be avoided
[then paraphrasing:] Change !!something to !something.nil?
Understanding how it works can be useful if you need to convert, say, an enumeration into a boolean. I have code that does exactly that, using the classy_enum gem:
class LinkStatus < ClassyEnum::Base
def !
return true
end
end
class LinkStatus::No < LinkStatus
end
class LinkStatus::Claimed < LinkStatus
def !
return false
end
end
class LinkStatus::Confirmed < LinkStatus
def !
return false
end
end
class LinkStatus::Denied < LinkStatus
end
Then in service code I have, for example:
raise Application::Error unless !!object.link_status # => raises exception for "No" and "Denied" states.
Effectively the bangbang operator has become what I might otherwise have written as a method called to_bool.
Other answers have discussed what !! does and whether it is good practice or not.
However, none of the answers give the "standard Ruby way" of casting a value into a boolean.
true & variable
TrueClass, the class of the Ruby value true, implements a method &, which is documented as follows:
Returns false if obj is nil or false, true otherwise.
Why use a dirty double-negation when the standard library has you covered?

Best ruby idiom for "nil or zero"

I am looking for a concise way to check a value to see if it is nil or zero. Currently I am doing something like:
if (!val || val == 0)
# Is nil or zero
end
But this seems very clumsy.
Objects have a nil? method.
if val.nil? || val == 0
[do something]
end
Or, for just one instruction:
[do something] if val.nil? || val == 0
From Ruby 2.3.0 onward, you can combine the safe navigation operator (&.) with Numeric#nonzero?. &. returns nil if the instance was nil and nonzero? - if the number was 0:
unless val&.nonzero?
# Is nil or zero
end
Or postfix:
do_something unless val&.nonzero?
If you really like method names with question marks at the end:
if val.nil? || val.zero?
# do stuff
end
Your solution is fine, as are a few of the other solutions.
Ruby can make you search for a pretty way to do everything, if you're not careful.
First off I think that's about the most concise way you can check for that particular condition.
Second, to me this is a code smell that indicates a potential flaw in your design. Generally nil and zero shouldn't mean the same thing. If possible you should try to eliminate the possibility of val being nil before you hit this code, either by checking that at the beginning of the method or some other mechanism.
You might have a perfectly legitimate reason to do this in which case I think your code is good, but I'd at least consider trying to get rid of the nil check if possible.
You can use the Object.nil? to test for nil specifically (and not get caught up between false and nil). You can monkey-patch a method into Object as well.
class Object
def nil_or_zero?
return (self.nil? or self == 0)
end
end
my_object = MyClass.new
my_object.nil_or_zero?
==> false
This is not recommended as changes to Object are difficult for coworkers to trace, and may make your code unpredictable to others.
nil.to_i returns zero, so I often do this:
val.to_i.zero?
However, you will get an exception if val is ever an object that does not respond_to #to_i.
I believe your code is incorrect; it will in fact test for three values: nil, false, and zero. This is because the !val expression is true for all values that are false, which in Ruby is nil and false.
The best I can come up with right now is
if val == nil || val == 0
# do stuff
end
Which of course is not very clever, but (very) clear.
My solution also use Refinements, minus the conditionals.
module Nothingness
refine Numeric do
alias_method :nothing?, :zero?
end
refine NilClass do
alias_method :nothing?, :nil?
end
end
using Nothingness
if val.nothing?
# Do something
end
Short and clear
[0, nil].include?(val)
Shortest and best way should be
if val&.>(0)
# do something
end
For val&.>(0)
it returns nil when val is nil since > basically is also a method, nil equal to false in ruby. It return false when val == 0.
Rails does this via attribute query methods, where in addition to false and nil, 0 and "" also evaluate to false.
if (model.attribute?) # => false if attribute is 0 and model is an ActiveRecord::Base derivation
However it has its share of detractors. http://www.joegrossberg.com/archives/002995.html
To be as idiomatic as possible, I'd suggest this.
if val.nil? or val == 0
# Do something
end
Because:
It uses the nil? method.
It uses the "or" operator, which is preferable to ||.
It doesn't use parentheses, which are not necessary in this case. Parentheses should only be used when they serve some purpose, such as overriding the precedence of certain operators.
I deal with this by defining an "is?" method, which I can then implement differently on various classes. So for Array, "is?" means "size>0"; for Fixnum it means "self != 0"; for String it means "self != ''". NilClass, of course, defines "is?" as just returning nil.
You can use case if you like:
case val with nil, 0
# do stuff
end
Then you can use anything that works with ===, which is nice sometimes. Or do something like this:
not_valid = nil, 0
case val1 with *not_valid
# do stuff
end
#do other stuff
case val2 with *not_valid, false #Test for values that is nil, 0 or false
# do other other stuff
end
It's not exactly good OOP, but it's very flexible and it works. My ifs usually end up as cases anyway.
Of course Enum.any?/Enum.include? kind of works too ... if you like to get really cryptic:
if [0, nil].include? val
#do stuff
end
The right thing to do is of course to define a method or function. Or, if you have to do the same thing with many values, use a combination of those nice iterators.
I really like Rails blank? method for that kind of things, but it won't return true for 0. So you can add your method:
def nil_zero?
if respond_to?(:zero?)
zero?
else
!self
end
end
And it will check if some value is nil or 0:
nil.nil_zero?
=> true
0.nil_zero?
=> true
10.nil_zero?
=> false
if val.nil_zero?
#...
end
Instead of monkey patching a class, you could use refinements starting in Ruby 2.1. Refinements are similar to monkey patching; in that, they allow you to modify the class, but the modification is limited to the scope you wish to use it in.
This is overkill if you want to do this check once, but if you are repeating yourself it's a great alternative to monkey patching.
module NilOrZero
refine Object do
def nil_or_zero?
nil? or zero?
end
end
end
using NilOrZero
class Car
def initialize(speed: 100)
puts speed.nil_or_zero?
end
end
car = Car.new # false
car = Car.new(speed: nil) # true
car = Car.new(speed: 0) # true
Refinements were changed in the last minute to be scoped to the file. So earlier examples may have shown this, which will not work.
class Car
using NilOrZero
end
This is very concise:
if (val || 0) == 0
# Is nil, false, or zero.
end
It works as long as you don't mind treating false the same as nil. In the projects I've worked on, that distinction only matters once in a while. The rest of the time I personally prefer to skip .nil? and have slightly shorter code.
[Update: I don't write this sort of thing any more. It works but is too cryptic. I have tried to set right my misdeeds by changing the few places where I did it.]
By the way, I didn't use .zero? since this raises an exception if val is, say, a string. But .zero? would be fine if you know that's not the case.
This evaluates to true for nil and zero: nil.to_s.to_d == 0
unless (val || 0).zero?
# do stufff
end
In a single stretch you can do this:
[do_something] if val.to_i == 0
nil.to_i will return 0
Another solution:
if val.to_i == 0
# do stuff
end
val ||= 0
if val == 0
# do something here
end

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