find_by_id and find_by_email methods are not available to me

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hello everyone,

I’m learning Rails through the railtutorial.org book. I’m following very closely every detail taught in the book. However, there’s something that I don’t seem to find a solution. I have the following snippet of code:

def authenticate(email, submitted_password) user = find_by_email(email) #user = where(:email => email).first
(user && user.has_password?(submitted_password)) ? user : nil

end

def authenticate_with_salt(id, cookie_salt)
  user = find_by_id(id)
  #user = where(:id => id)
  (user && user.salt == cookie_salt) ? user : nil
end

end

in the authenticate method, the find_by_id(id) call is returning nil. Going to the console, the function is not available to me whenever I call it. The funny thing is that it does not throw an exception (it’s heavily using meta-programming), so the method is generated on the fly, I guess. The thing is: the method is being called, but always returns nil. Does anyone know why is this happening? I had to replace the code by user = where(:email => email).first, for example. It works flawlessly. Can it be something related to the Ruby version I’m using?

$ ruby -v ruby 1.9.2p0 (2010-08-18 revision 29036) [x86_64-darwin10.5.0]

$ rails -v Rails 3.0.9

$ gem list activerecord activerecord (3.0.9, 3.0.1) I appreciate any help …

Thanks,

-fred

2

Frederiko Costa wrote in post #1024504:

   def authenticate(email, submitted_password)       user = find_by_email(email)       #user = where(:email => email).first       (user && user.has_password?(submitted_password)) ? user : nil     end

in the authenticate method, the find_by_id(id) call is returning nil. Going to the console, the function is not available to me whenever I call it. The

If you have:

user = find_by_id(id)

What part of that statement is the receiver of the message "find_by_id"?

I think you meant:

user = User.find_by_id(id)

So to answer my own question, the receiver in this case is the class User, which means that find_by_id is a class method as opposed to an instance method. And, just to be clear, the method "find_by_id" is what is called a "dynamic finder" method. It actually doesn't exist until the first time it is called. The method will be dynamically added to the receiving class (User in this case) via the method_missing method that all Ruby objects respond to.

http://blog.hasmanythrough.com/2006/8/13/how-dynamic-finders-work