Pattern matching to the rescue!

Enum.filter(list_of_nils_and_tuples, fn 
  nil -> false
  {id, _v}  -> some_complicated_test(id)
end)

You can, but You also apply a transformation at the same time…

list_of_nils_and_tuples
|> Enum.filter(& &1)     # drop falsy value
|> Enum.map(& some_complicated_test(elem(&1, 0)))

You can also define some_complicated_test to return false when nil is passed, and use it as the filter function.

I just had to do something similar and was looking for something like Enum.compact().
I ended up using a comprehension with pattern matching as well, but you don’t need the match operator (=) or the guard. The {id, _v} itself is already doing the work. Example:

iex(0)> list = [nil, nil, {1,2}, nil, {3,4}]
[nil, nil, {1, 2}, nil, {3, 4}]

iex(1)> for {id, _v} <- list, do: id
[1, 3]