AR::Base#all(:order => '') => invalid SQL

Is this my payment for minimizing my example? :/

I found this using generated code. With this functionality, I can do the following:

@@@ruby cond_string = big computation order_string = bigger computation join_string = biggest computation

Venue.all(:joins => join_string, :conditions => cond_string, :order => order_string)

Without, I'm stuck with:

@@@ruby
cond_string = big computation
order_string = bigger computation
join_string = biggest computation

options = {}
options[:conditions] = cond_string unless cond_string.empty?
options[:order] = order_string unless order_string.empty?
options[:joins] = join_string unless join_string.empty?

Venue.all(options)

Unless I "really shouldn't" pass in an empty options string, either.

That didn't format as advertised, and I don't seem to be able to edit my comment.

Is this my payment for minimizing my example? :/

I found this using generated code. With this functionality, I can do the following:

cond_string = big computation order_string = bigger computation join_string = biggest computation

Venue.all(:joins => join_string, :conditions => cond_string, :order => order_string)

Without, I'm stuck with:

cond_string = big computation order_string = bigger computation join_string = biggest computation

options = {} options[:conditions] = cond_string unless cond_string.empty? options[:order] = order_string unless order_string.empty? options[:joins] = join_string unless join_string.empty?

Venue.all(options)

Unless I "really shouldn't" pass in an empty options string, either.

Ick. Spaces matter.

Is this my payment for minimizing my example? :/

cond_string = big computation 
order_string = bigger computation 
join_string = biggest computation

Venue.all(:joins => join_string, :conditions => cond_string, :order => order_string)

Without, I'm stuck with:

cond_string = big computation 
order_string = bigger computation 
join_string = biggest computation

options = {} options[:conditions] = cond_string unless cond_string.empty? 
options[:order] = order_string unless order_string.empty? 
options[:joins] = join_string unless join_string.empty?

Venue.all(options)

Unless I "really shouldn't" pass in an empty options string, either.

order_string = bigger_computation
order_string = nil if order_string.blank? 
cond_string = big computation 
join_string = biggest computation

Venue.all(:joins => join_string, :conditions => cond_string, :order => order_string)

There is currently no documentation on what happens if an option is passed which is nil or empty. I discovered this behavior (:joins, and :conditions work with blank parameters, :order does not) when using generated fragments. In my case, these generated fragments were themselves compounds, built with a final Array#join, thus always strings.

I would like a clean, smooth, supported interface. Your solution would appear to be none of these.

@lifo while this ticket is far from important and I fully agree that @nil@-ifying parameter is just what Student needs, I think there is still sense in applying: right now there is a code snippet that checks for @nil@, we can just change it to @.present?@, that solves the problem just right.

I am -1 here. The API shouldn't be designed to eat everything. In particular I don't really see the documentation stating that you can pass blank?s to :order (if it was really supported it should be documented).

In my opinion :order has either a valid value or nothing. An empty string is an invalid value.

Another possibility would be to clean the hash with a custom #compact method for hashes that removes entries with blank? values.

I agree that this is not an error as in "the documentation says X will happen and it does not". But I believe that the observed behavior is not optimal, in that the caller is responsible (in some cases) to normalize data when there is only one reasonable way to interpret the data.

Certainly, the caller can, as I currently must, ensure that no option is set with blank parameters. But if the purpose of a framework is to reduce the work of the using programmer, this would seem to be a strange way to proceed.