Empty string search returns Afghanistan because it is a very first value in country list about iso3166 HOT 5 CLOSED

@alcohol sorry but I don't follow, what autocomplete? This is not a JS frontend library we would use for autocompletion, instead we use it in integration systems to lookup for appropriate country details based on user input. Therefore you can't just state that this is not a bug rather a feature, this is at least inappropriate!
IMO the return should be null in this case or at least throw an exception.

from iso3166.

Aside from name(), the other public methods implement guards. Perhaps the same could be done for name(). Although I am not sure if this is really an issue to begin with. There is no contract or definition for what should be returned if you search for an empty string. Since name() functions somewhat like an autocomplete, returning the first result from the set for an empty search string could be considered a graceful way to "fail".

from iso3166.

@alcohol so if I search for a string, should I also make sure that the country I end up with is actually the one I was looking for?
I'm afraid that approach seems like a recipe for messing things up without really trying.

from iso3166.

I do not follow. If you search for a string through the name() method, you can expect a result in an autocomplete like manner. If you want to be sure of the returned value, I suggest working with alpha 2 or 3 codes instead. They always map 1:1 to their designated value.

from iso3166.

@alcohol
Following description of method.

@throws \League\ISO3166\Exception\OutOfBoundsException if key does not exist in dataset

I believe empty string is non-existing key, also any one letter key should then end up on that exception, as I'm quite sure it does not exist same as empty string. It should be strict behaviour.

from iso3166.