No-empty-html-text

What is it?

This is a simple rule for the elm-review tool that will flag the use of the Html.text function as a mean to show nothing. It is quite often the case that we see the following pattern in elm code:

if a then
  viewA a
else
  text ""

However, there is the quite nice elm-community/html-extra package that provide utility functions to "replace" those text "" by an alias nothing or by some other utility functions (e.g viewIf, viewMaybe, ...)

Why should you use it?

• if you've just installed html-extra on an already existing project chances are that you've plenty of text "" dispersed across many files. Setting up elm-review and using this rule would be a good way to find and fix them all.
• if you are already got the habit of using the function from html-extra but you'd like to make sure that newcomers will get directed to the proper doc when they start on your project, this is also a good option.

Why should you not use it?

• if you do not mind text "" in your code.
• if you do not want to use html-extra.
• if you do not want to setup elm-review.
• ...

Example configuration

import NoEmptyText
import Review.Rule exposing (Rule)

config : List Rule
config =
  [ NoEmptyText.rule
  ]