Invalid EE Conditional when testing stash variable

Question

In my stash partial, I have:

{!-- Custom Sidebar? --}
{if "{exp:stash:get name='custom_sidebar_text'}"}
  <section class="container">
    {if "{exp:stash:get name='custom_sidebar_title'}"}
      <h3>
        {exp:stash:get name='custom_sidebar_title'}
      </h3>
    {/if}
    {exp:stash:get name='custom_sidebar_text' random}
  </section>
{/if}
{!-- /Custom Sidebar --}

In my template I have this:

{embed="layouts/.landing_page"}
{exp:channel:entries}
  {exp:stash:set parse_tags="yes" parse_conditionals="yes"}
    {!-- Several other stash variables --}
    {stash:custom_sidebar_title}{custom_sidebar_title}{/stash:custom_sidebar_title}
    {stash:custom_sidebar_text}{custom_sidebar_text}{/stash:custom_sidebar_text}
  {/exp:stash:set}
{/exp:channel:entries}

I’m getting a warning saying:

A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: User Warning
Message: Invalid EE
Conditional Variable: {if "
A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Warning
Message: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /Users/agarzola/git/wfgc/system/codeigniter/system/core/Exceptions.php:170)
Filename: core/Common.php
Line Number: 412

If I remove the outermost conditional tags in the partial ({if "{exp:stash:get name='custom_sidebar_text'}"} and '{/if}'), the markup is rendered perfectly, with the stash variables parsed as expected.

edited to add: This only happens when the custom_sidebar_text field contains a link (generated via Wygwam in this case). Take away the link on the edit entry form, save the page, and the error goes away.

Answer 1

This is because the hyperlink in your stashed variable likely contains double quotes, which is also the delimiter you're using to contain the conditional. So you're basically saying:

{if "<p>Here is my test <a href="http://url.com">with a link</a>.</p>"}

As you can see, this will lead to problems due to unescaped quotes.

Instead, use :not_empty (docs).

{if {exp:stash:not_empty name="custom_sidebar_text"}}