On 16 Jan ''06, at 10:56 AM, thiago jackiw wrote:
> 1- How do I work with null objects without returning the rails
> error to the user? Like if I''m searching for a record and no
> record''s found, how would I deliver my custom message to the user?
You could use the :all version of ActiveRecord#find, instead of just
passing in the record id ? that will return an empty array if no
record is found, instead of throwing an exception.
> 2- How does the ''nil'' object work?
It''s a bit fancier than a simple nil/null pointer in most other
languages. It is a real object: the sole instance of a class called
NilClass, which you can look up in the core library ref. This class
does pretty much nothing except respond to some boolean and type-
conversion methods and the very useful ''nil?''.
But for the most part you can treat it just as you would a nil/null
pointer in PHP or Java or C++ or whatever.
--Jens