CollectionHumanizeExtensions.Humanize causes NullReferenceException for null items

[jnm2]

This is a headache for me. .Select(_ => _?.ToString() ?? string.Empty).Humanize() seems unnecessary; wouldn't it be a sensible default to allow .Humanize() directly on collections containing nulls?

Happy to do a PR if you think so.

[clairernovotny]

Happy to accept a PR to fix this. I would think that there should be a default null value that's overridable if desired. Some people may want String.Empty, but others may want something like Missing or <empty>.

[jnm2]

Now that I think about it, users might expect enumerable.Humanize() to skip null entries entirely. It isn't very human to display A, , , B, and C. I'd expect each item to be trimmed and null-or-empty items to be skipped so as to avoid the comma. What do you think?

[aloisdg]

@jnm2 I agree with your behavior as default if we use a flag to allow something else. We can adapt StringSplitOptions to do the trick:

Member name	Description
None	The return value includes array elements that contain an empty string
RemoveEmptyEntries	The return value does not include array elements that contain an empty string

For Humanize:

Member name	Description
None	The return value does not includes array elements that contain an empty string
AllowEmptyEntries	The return value includes array elements that contain an empty string

Where None is default like in StringSplitOptions.

[jnm2]

What about this:

[Flags] enum StringJoinOptions
{
    None = 0,
    TrimEntries = 1 << 0,
    RemoveBlankEntries = 1 << 1,
    Default = TrimEntries | RemoveBlankEntries 
}

Blank is synonymous with NullOrWhitespace, whereas Empty is synonymous with == string.Empty.

[jnm2]

@onovotny Need some direction- how configurable should this be? Don't want to go overboard.

[clairernovotny]

The options you have there seem ok -- I agree there's no need to go overboard, we can always add more later if we need.

[jnm2]

You're okay with a default value that would trim all items and remove empty ones? What would the new default mean for back-compat and versioning, or can new[] { "A", "", "B" }.Humanize() -> A, , B be considered a bug?