[cs] Misleading conditional

[sfgeorge]

The following conditional found in lib/punchblock/component/output.rb has a misleading final elsif:

def xml_value
  if ssml?
    value.to_s
  elsif urilist?
    value.to_s
  elsif
    value
  end
end

One may think that the above elsif is equivalent to ... else value end or ... elsif value; value end, but neither is the case. As seen in this gist, it's a strange, empty elsif block with nil as a return value. The method is functionally equivalent to the following:

def xml_value
  if ssml?
    value.to_s
  elsif urilist?
    value.to_s
  elsif value
    nil
  end
end

Additionally, if we change that nil to ">FOO!" the test suite continues to pass. So while this is a private method, we should probably fix this and ensure it is tested.

What is the desired outcome of this case? value, value.to_s, or KABOOM! with a raised exception?

[benlangfeld]

This is supposed to be:

def xml_value
  if ssml?
    value.to_s
  elsif urilist?
    value.to_s
  else
    value
  end
end

Tests / a fix would be lovely :)

[bklang]

Is there any way to trigger this bug from a public method?