blank? Is All You Need

if data.nil? || data.blank?
  inform_user
end

I've seen the above code often enough lately that I thought a brief post was in order to inform/remind folks that blank? is all you need. Here's a script/console session proving just that.

$ script/console
Loading development environment (Rails 2.3.5)
>> data = nil
=> nil
>> data.nil?
=> true
>> data.blank?
=> true

Thus, we can eliminate the first half of the conditional expression.

if data.blank?
  inform_user
end

Now, if you find you want to check !blank? but you prefer to express your conditional checks positively instead of negatively, you can use present?.

if !data.blank?
  show_it
end

becomes

if data.present?
  show_it
end

Using blank? and present? enables clearer and more concise conditionals, a benefit not only now but every time someone reads the code.