Checking if a variable is not nil and not zero in ruby

Question

I am using the following code to check if a variable is not nil and not zero

if(discount != nil && discount != 0) 
  ...
end

Is the

Answer 1

def is_nil_and_zero(data)
     data.blank? || data == 0 
end  

If we pass "" it will return false whereas blank? returns true. Same is the case when data = false blank? returns true for nil, false, empty, or a whitespace string. So it's better to use blank? method to avoid empty string as well.