[ruby-core:103186] [Ruby master Feature#17773] Alias `Numeric#zero?` and `Float#zero?` as `Numeric#empty?` and `Float#empty?`

[sawadatsuyoshi@gmail.com]

Issue #17773 has been updated by sawa (Tsuyoshi Sawada).


You may be right that zero is not (the only) special (element). In fact, one is the unit element for multiplication whereas zero is the unit element for addition. But still, addition is the first operation, and is more prominent than multiplication, which is the second operation. And the fact that we already have `zero?` method and the fact that many languages handle zero as falsy seem to indicate that indeed zero is special.

Regarding -1 representing emptiness, I cannot recall clear instances. (Perhaps related to some sort of perpendicularity?) Can you give me some ideas?

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Feature #17773: Alias `Numeric#zero?` and `Float#zero?` as `Numeric#empty?` and `Float#empty?`
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/17773#change-91261

* Author: sawa (Tsuyoshi Sawada)
* Status: Open
* Priority: Normal
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When dealing with user input fields as in web applications, there are typical values that we want to consider as the default and/or absence of user input. For string/text inputs, list items, and attributes, we have `String#empty?`, `Array#empty?`, and `Hash#empty?` respectively, which seem to correspond to those cases. As for numerics, there are `Numeric#zero?` and `Float#zero?`.

However, there is no single term that covers all these cases. In a routine to check through the fields whether there is user input, we have to selectively use `empty?` or `zero?` depending on the type of the input field.

Many programming languages other than Ruby typically consider these values as falsy with respect to logical calculation. Ruby handles only `nil` and `false` as falsy, and that has clear advantages in many aspects, but with the cost of losing a simple way to handle these default values.

I propose to alias `Numeric#zero?` as `Numeric#empty?` and `Float#zero?` as `Float#empty?` so that we can simply use `empty?`. At first, calling zero as empty might sound strange, but at least for non-negative integers, set theoretic definitions usually define zero as the empty set, so it is not that strange after all.


Ruby on Rails' `blank?` is conceptually similar to this, but `0.blank?` returns `false`, so it is a different concept.



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