Problem with params and a string

def index      cond = params[:letter] + "%"      @clients = Client.find :all, :conditions => ["firstname like ?" , cond], :order => "firstname ASC"   end

This is my code and it gives me an error everytime saying this:

You have a nil object when you didn't expect it! You might have expected an instance of Array. The error occurred while evaluating nil.+

How can I fix this?

What is the value of params[:letter] ? If it's nil you need to check for that...

if params[:letter].nil? # or possibly .blank?    # throw a hissy fit    return end