# Re: Combine @item.foo.nil? || @item.foo.empty??

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-combine-item-foo-nil-item-foo-empty/68076>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [September 8, 2006, 10:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-combine-item-foo-nil-item-foo-empty/68076 "2006-09-08T22:57:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![phrogz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@phrogz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/phrogz)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2006, 10:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-combine-item-foo-nil-item-foo-empty/68076/1 "2006-09-08T22:57:07Z")

</div>

> unless (@item.foo.nil? || @item.foo.empty?)  
> Is there a way to combine these two OR clauses into one?

You could always modify nil so that empty? worked for it:

irb(main):001:0\> a = nil  
=\> nil  
irb(main):002:0\> a.nil?  
=\> true  
irb(main):003:0\> a.empty?  
NoMethodError: undefined method `empty?’ for nil:NilClass  
from (irb):3  
irb(main):004:0\> class NilClass; def empty?; true; end; end  
=\> nil  
irb(main):005:0\> a.empty?  
=\> true