ruby one-liner for this possible?

Question

Any chance the 2nd and 3rd lines can be combined in an one-liner and hopefully save one valuable?

def self.date_format
  record = find_by_key('strftime')
  record ? record.value : "%Y-%b-%d'
end

the above function in a Config model try to fetch a database record by a key, return a default if not found in database.

Even better if can be written in named scope. Thanks

Answer 1

Does

value = find_by_key('strftime') || "%Y-%b-%d"

work for you?

Answer 2

Do you need to assign a "value" variable at all? If not...

def self.date_format
  find_by_key('strftime') || "%Y-%b-%d"
end

Answer 3

As requested.

Nobody yet has mentioned try, which is perfect for this situation:

value = find_by_key('strftime').try(:value) || "%Y-%b-%d"

Answer 4

You could use:

(find_by_key('strftime').value rescue nil) || "%Y-%b-%d"

though using exceptions is not very efficient.