Rails - Jul 2006 - Eager loading of ''is meant to be nil'' Associations

If I ''find'' using :include, and some included associations are
null,
then looping through the array executing ''if obj[i].assoc''
accesses the
database for a second time (as obj.assoc is nil).

eg
Topic, has_many posts
Post has_one email

and

posts = Post.find(:all, :condition => ''posts.topic_id =
10'', :include =>
[''email''])

then

for post in posts do
  if post.email
    #do something here
  end
end

and

some post objects do not have an email address set.



then, as post.email is nil active record attempts to load the email 
address, which of course is nil.

Is there a way to ''fix'' or ''freeze'' the post
object so that it Active
Record won''t attempt to access the DB for a second time?

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