rails way to strip empty child objects from array?

rubyonrails-talk
1

poipu wrote:

it seems basically i need to run a compact on the children, but how to use compact on children?

Put them into an Array?

If they are in a Model, such as a product of has_many, they likely are already in an Array.

Post some Ruby code (not YAML!).

2

poipu wrote:

@scats = Scategory.find(:all, :conditions => ["mcategory_id = ?", params[:id]], :include => :howtos)

howtos are the children....scategory has many howtos....

now scats is an array where the content is an array of howtos contents?

p scats.first p scats.first.howtos p scats.first.howtos.first

Next question: What is an "empty" howto? Can you add a :condition or similar to the has_many to exclude them at the database level? Or - even better - not store them?