struct Nil

• Nil
• Value
• Object

Overview

The Nil type has only one possible value: nil.

nil is commonly used to represent the absence of a value. For example, String#index returns the position of the character or nil if it's not in the string:

str = "Hello world"
str.index 'e' # => 1
str.index 'a' # => nil

In the above example, trying to invoke a method on the returned value will give a compile time error unless both Int32 and Nil define that method:

str = "Hello world"
idx = str.index 'e'
idx + 1 # Error: undefined method '+' for Nil

The language and the standard library provide short, readable, easy ways to deal with nil, such as Object#try and Object#not_nil!:

str = "Hello world"

# The index of 'e' in str or 0 if not found
idx1 = str.index('e') || 0

idx2 = str.index('a')
if idx2
  # Compiles: idx2 can't be nil here
  idx2 + 1
end

# Tell the compiler that we are sure the returned
# value is not nil: raises a runtime exception
# if our assumption doesn't hold.
idx3 = str.index('o').not_nil!

See Nil literal in the language reference.

Defined in:

ssz/codec.cr
ssz/hash_tree_root.cr

Class Method Summary

• .ssz_basic? : Bool
• .ssz_decode(bytes : Bytes, size : Int32 = 0)
• .ssz_decode(io : IO)
• .ssz_variable? : Bool

Instance Method Summary

• #hash_tree_root : Bytes
• #ssz_basic? : Bool
• #ssz_encode(io : IO)
• #ssz_encode : Bytes
• #ssz_size : Int32
• #ssz_variable? : Bool

Class Method Detail

Instance Method Detail