Converting empty string to a None in Scala - scala

Question

I have a requirement to concatenate two potentially empty address lines into one (with a space in between the two lines), but I need it to return a None if both address lines are None (this field is going into an Option[String] variable). The following command gets me what I want in terms of the concatenation:
Seq(myobj.address1, myobj.address2).flatten.mkString(" ")
But that gives me an empty string instead of a None in case address1 and address2 are both None.

Answer 1

This converts a single string to Option, converting it to None if it's either null or an empty-trimmed string:
(kudos to #Miroslav Machura for this simpler version)
Option(x).filter(_.trim.nonEmpty)
Alternative version, using collect:
Option(x).collect { case x if x.trim.nonEmpty => x }

Answer 2

Assuming:
val list1 = List(Some("aaaa"), Some("bbbb"))
val list2 = List(None, None)
Using plain Scala:
scala> Option(list1).map(_.flatten).filter(_.nonEmpty).map(_.mkString(" "))
res38: Option[String] = Some(aaaa bbbb)
scala> Option(list2).map(_.flatten).filter(_.nonEmpty).map(_.mkString(" "))
res39: Option[String] = None
Or using scalaz:
import scalaz._; import Scalaz._
scala> list1.flatten.toNel.map(_.toList.mkString(" "))
res35: Option[String] = Some(aaaa bbbb)
scala> list2.flatten.toNel.map(_.toList.mkString(" "))
res36: Option[String] = None

Answer 3

Well, In Scala there is Option[ T ] type which is intended to eliminate various run-time problems due to nulls.
So... Here is how you use Options, So basically a Option[ T ] can have one of the two types of values - Some[ T ] or None
// A nice string
var niceStr = "I am a nice String"
// A nice String option
var noceStrOption: Option[ String ] = Some( niceStr )
// A None option
var noneStrOption: Option[ String ] = None
Now coming to your part of problem:
// lets say both of your myobj.address1 and myobj.address2 were normal Strings... then you would not have needed to flatten them... this would have worked..
var yourString = Seq(myobj.address1, myobj.address2).mkString(" ")
// But since both of them were Option[ String ] you had to flatten the Sequence[ Option[ String ] ] to become a Sequence[ String ]
var yourString = Seq(myobj.address1, myobj.address2).flatten.mkString(" ")
//So... what really happens when you flatten a Sequence[ Option[ String ] ] ?
// Lets say we have Sequence[ Option [ String ] ], like this
var seqOfStringOptions = Seq( Some( "dsf" ), None, Some( "sdf" ) )
print( seqOfStringOptions )
// List( Some(dsf), None, Some(sdf))
//Now... lets flatten it out...
var flatSeqOfStrings = seqOfStringOptions.flatten
print( flatSeqOfStrings )
// List( dsf, sdf )
// So... basically all those Option[ String ] which were None are ignored and only Some[ String ] are converted to Strings.
// So... that means if both address1 and address2 were None... your flattened list would be empty.
// Now what happens when we create a String out of an empty list of Strings...
var emptyStringList: List[ String ] = List()
var stringFromEmptyList = emptyStringList.mkString( " " )
print( stringFromEmptyList )
// ""
// So... you get an empty String
// Which means we are sure that yourString will always be a String... though it can be empty (ie - "").
// Now that we are sure that yourString will alwyas be a String, we can use pattern matching to get out Option[ String ] .
// Getting an appropriate Option for yourString
var yourRequiredOption: Option[ String ] = yourString match {
// In case yourString is "" give None.
case "" => None
// If case your string is not "" give Some[ yourString ]
case someStringVal => Some( someStringVal )
}

Answer 4

You might also use the reduce method here:
val mySequenceOfOptions = Seq(myAddress1, myAddress2, ...)
mySequenceOfOptions.reduce[Option[String]] {
case(Some(soFar), Some(next)) => Some(soFar + " " + next)
case(None, next) => next
case(soFar, None) => soFar
}

Answer 5

Here's a function that should solve the original problem.
def mergeAddresses(addr1: Option[String],
addr2: Option[String]): Option[String] = {
val str = s"${addr1.getOrElse("")} ${addr2.getOrElse("")}"
if (str.trim.isEmpty) None else Some(str)
}

Answer 6

the answer from #dk14 is actually incorrect/incomplete because if list2 has a Some("") it will not yield a None because the filter() evaluates to an empty list instead of a None ( ScalaFiddle link)
val list2 = List(None, None, Some(""))
// this yields Some()
println(Option(list2).map(_.flatten).filter(_.nonEmpty).map(_.mkString(" ")))
but it's close. you just need to ensure that empty string is converted to a None so we combine it with #juanmirocks answer (ScalaFiddle link):
val list1 = List(Some("aaaa"), Some("bbbb"))
val list2 = List(None, None, Some(""))
// yields Some(aaaa bbbbb)
println(Option(list1.map(_.collect { case x if x.trim.nonEmpty => x }))
.map(_.flatten).filter(_.nonEmpty).map(_.mkString(" ")))
// yields None
println(Option(list2.map(_.collect { case x if x.trim.nonEmpty => x }))
.map(_.flatten).filter(_.nonEmpty).map(_.mkString(" ")))

Answer 7

I was searching a kind of helper function like below in the standard library but did not find yet, so I defined in the meantime:
def string_to_Option(x: String): Option[String] = {
if (x.nonEmpty)
Some(x)
else
None
}
with the help of the above you can then:
import scala.util.chaining.scalaUtilChainingOps
object TEST123 {
def main(args: Array[String]): Unit = {
val address1 = ""
val address2 = ""
val result =
Seq(
address1 pipe string_to_Option,
address2 pipe string_to_Option
).flatten.mkString(" ") pipe string_to_Option
println(s"The result is «${result}»")
// prints out: The result is «None»
}
}

Answer 8

With Scala 2.13:
Option.unless(address.isEmpty)(address)
For example:
val address = "foo"
Option.unless(address.isEmpty)(address) // Some("foo")
val address = ""
Option.unless(address.isEmpty)(address) // None

Answer 9

implicit class EmptyToNone(s: String):
def toOption: Option[String] = if (s.isEmpty) None else Some(s)
Example:
scala> "".toOption
val res0: Option[String] = None
scala> "foo".toOption
val res1: Option[String] = Some(foo)
(tested with Scala 3.2.2)