Rails 3.1: Ruby idiom to prevent .each from throwing exception if nil?

Simply do the following:

Array(phonelist).each do |phone|
  #deal with your phone
end

Array(my_variable) will ensure to return an array if my_variable is nil.

It doesn't create a new Array if my_variable is already an array, so it is safe and light to use it wherever you want !

You can use the try method to call .each on a nil so it does not throw an error if the object is nil or empty.

phonelist = nil
phonelist.try(:each){|i| puts i}

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