Convert CDATA input to string before gsub'ing

[carpodaster]

Rails 3.2 API allowed arbitrary input for cdata_section; this change re-introduces the old behaviour.

If it is deemed worthy to be merged, does it make sense to add it to 4.0-STABLE as well?

[rafaelfranca]

I really don't see the point to pass non string values to this method. The documentation only shows example with string values.

Could you explain why you want to pass arbitrary values?

[carpodaster]

I'll gladly explain it.

My use case is a Rails 3.2 app that uses cdata_section for building XML output. The method is called several times and receives values of ActiveModel instance attributes. These attributes are oftentime nil or DateTime instances.

When you pass data that is potentially nil to cdata_section, it will break due to the unchecked #gsub. Yes, you can add a guarding if for every call to cdata_section but to me it seems reasonable to pull that piece of input sanitation into the method being called.

DateTime objects have a pretty reasonable #to_s. No need to bow out with a undefined method error there, either.

Furthermore, there is no damage done: When you call cdata_section you'll expect to get a CDATA string. Worst thing that could happen is that this tag will be empty. The ideal case is that it Just Works(tm).

We can and should be lazy about the type being passed in.

[rafaelfranca]

I see. Thank you for the explanation. This help to take the decision to backport or not. Agree with the fix. Thanks