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# Get An Empty ActiveRecord Relation

When you query for something (with `#where`) and there are no results matching that query, you get something that looks like an empty array (`[]`), but it's not quite.

```ruby
> result
[]
> result.class
Book::ActiveRecord_Relation
```

It's an empty [`ActiveRecord` relation](https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Relation.html).

You can get an instance of an empty `ActiveRecord` relation without constructing a *no result* query.

```ruby
> Book.none
[]
> Book.none.class
Book::ActiveRecord_Relation
```

I can think of a couple scenarios where this would be useful:

* as a default value for a method parameter
* as a test value for a method that expects to have an `ActiveRecord` relation passed in

[source](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4877931/how-to-return-an-empty-activerecord-relation)