#4880 FalseClass should return false on a .presence check not nil - Ruby on Rails

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#4880 ✓wontfix

FalseClass should return false on a .presence check not nil

Reported by Philip Arndt | June 16th, 2010 @ 11:37 PM

When you create a variable and set it to false and then use .presence on it, .presence returns nil where it should return false.

I've attached a patch which solves this by adding the presence method to FalseClass and always returning self from it.
I've also updated the relevant tests to handle this change.

make-falseclass-presence-return-false.diff 1.6 KB

Comments and changes to this ticket

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Deleted User June 16th, 2010 @ 11:43 PM
+1
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Philip Arndt June 17th, 2010 @ 12:02 AM
- Assigned user cleared.
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David Jones June 17th, 2010 @ 12:05 AM
+1
Ryan Bigg June 17th, 2010 @ 12:18 AM
- State changed from “new” to “verified”
+1
Jeremy Kemper June 17th, 2010 @ 12:54 AM
- State changed from “verified” to “wontfix”
returns nil where it should return false

Why should it? The lack of presence is nil, and false is not present, like " " and [].
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Philip Arndt June 17th, 2010 @ 01:39 AM
false is a valid instance of the FalseClass and so a false value is in essence present, just like how currently true is returned as a valid instance of the TrueClass for true.presence - these are different than empty string or empty array.

Currently we get:

true.presence #=> true

false.presence #=> nil

Merging this patch means that you (more consistently I think) get:

true.presence #=> true

false.presence #=> false

if statements will still work in the same fashion as before the only difference is that Rails no longer is hiding the actual value of false.
Jeremy Kemper June 17th, 2010 @ 02:48 AM
false.blank? # => true

false.present? # => false

Presence is universal for all objects. If an object is not blank?, self is returned. True and false are not special cases.