Re: Exposure of nil to end-users

[Mikko Sivulainen <mikko.sivulainen@...>]

Ben Harper wrote:
> I am using Lua as a language that allows end-users to manipulate
> database records.
> My problem is that I'm not sure how to expose NULL values to the user.
>
> In this example, value = nil
> User Types:      value .. "abc"
> User Expects:   'abc'
> User Gets:        Error: attempt to concatenate a nil value
>
> Has anybody had a similar problem, and how have you dealt with it?
>
> Thanks,
> Ben

I find myself using a lot of:

value = value or ""

when nil is not an option.