getAttributeRawValue return false if value is '0'

[bastienlm]

Something I think crazy
When you call
Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product')->getAttributeRawValue($productId, 'attribute', $storeId);
if the value is 0 in database (the real value), this function return FALSE (boolean) ⁉️

Yes, for this function empty value and 0 return the same thing 'FALSE'.
I think It's more logic to return 0 if value is 0 (string or numeric). I know it's not a little update and can be affected many thing, but... 0 != false... No ?! :)

[Flyingmana]

huh, thats a risky field to act on.

php > var_dump(false == '0');
bool(true)

which then still leads to return false, and its returning false for null and ""

In the end it still seems to lead to the expected result for any cases I can imagine. But I wonder if we should handle also the empty string case to return an empty string?
What does the database abstraction layer return in general?

This may also have a minimal impact on performance for some usecases.

[colinmollenhour]

I think the problem is with the fact that one return statement deals with two cases: single attribute and multiple attributes. It is better to handle each separately.

        if (sizeof($attributesData) == 1) {
            $_data = each($attributesData);
            return $_data[1];
        }
        return $attributesData ? $attributesData : false;

[bastienlm]

One simple example for understand the problems :
If you have one product with 'attribute_1' = 0;
$product->getAttribute1() => 0
Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product')->getAttributeRawValue($productId, 'attribute_1', $storeId); => false

with getAttributeRawValue you can't know if the real value is empty or 0. I think it's not a problem for the Core of Magento, but for custom devlopment (in my case ^^, for example, you need different process if value is empty or if value is 0) this 'issue' can cause trouble.

[bastienlm]

I think the problem is with the fact that one return statement deals with two cases: single attribute and multiple attributes. It is better to handle each separately.

        if (sizeof($attributesData) == 1) {
            $_data = each($attributesData);
            return $_data[1];
        }
        return $attributesData ? $attributesData : false;

More lite :) better !

[sreichel]

I think it's not a problem for the Core of Magento, but for custom devlopment (in my case ^^, for example, you need different process if value is empty or if value is 0) this 'issue' can cause trouble.

Could reproduce with one of my modules ... I do nut use 0 value so it doesnt appeared.

---

Bit oftopic ...

Should we care about impact on other people code? If someone expects that 0 is treated as false it could break his code ...

I agree with a fix, but we should document it. (and maybe add unit tests for it).

[sreichel]

With 1.9.4.4 (after this PR) code changed from ...

        if (sizeof($attributesData) == 1) {
            $_data = each($attributesData);
            $attributesData = $_data[1];
        }

to

        if (sizeof($attributesData) == 1 && !$returnArray) {
            $_data = reset($attributesData);
            $attributesData = $_data;
        }

@colinmollenhour did you verify that this change is still needed?

[kiatng]

Tested. It now

Retrieve attribute's raw value from DB.

as originally intended. But note that int 0 becomes "0". It return null if the value in DB is null. If the attribute doesn't exist, it returns false.

[tmotyl]

I consider it a bug and had to work around it in my projects several times.

[fballiano]

tested, I don't know how we lived without this until now

[fballiano]

I'm merging it and opening a new PR to document it in the README

[fballiano]

cherry-picked to v20 with no conflicts