html_safe with undefined fields

Question

i have a field which is not required i.e. can be nil. i want to use the ffg: myfield.html_safe in my view. this doesn't work for the items that have no myfield. i get an exception, how do i get html_safe to apply only if the field is defined? thanks

score 12 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 12 '11 at 14:18

12

In Rails, you can use

myfield.try(:html_safe)

Docs: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/Object.html#method-i-try

answered Dec 12 '11 at 14:18

Nikola

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score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 29 '11 at 14:45

11

myfield.html_safe if myfield or myfield.to_s.html_safe

answered Mar 29 '11 at 14:45

Kelly

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you'd get an exception here if you try to do nil.to_s – Yule Mar 29 '11 at 15:29
@Yule not according to the [rubydocs on NilClass](http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/NilClass.html) – Kelly Mar 29 '11 at 15:35
to_s.html_safe seems to work, no exception is thrown. out of curiousity why does converting to_s make a difference? is nil.html_safe not valid? – newbie_86 Mar 29 '11 at 18:23
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the Nil class only has a few basic methods, some of them being the ability to convert to an integer or a string. by using `.to_s`, you are essentially converting `nil` to a String class, and at that point you can use any of the String methods that Rails has added, like `html_safe`. – Kelly Mar 29 '11 at 18:32

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 29 '11 at 15:30

0

This should do it...

myfield.html_safe unless myfield.blank?

answered Mar 29 '11 at 15:30

Yule

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html_safe with undefined fields

3 Answers3