It can be hard to keep up on side projects, there are just so many other things around the house demanding attention. This week, I've been spending my time demolishing a brick BBQ/planter in the back yard. I've removed 3 cubic meters of dirt and brick! Last night I finished that, so I started to think about the side project I'm working on. As I did, I thought back to the WTF moment I wrote about a while ago, and I was afraid that I was wrong. Totally wrong. Idiotically wrong in a way that would demonstrate that I am a complete total and utter Ruby on Rails noob.
It's interesting about blog posts. I've added Feedburner so I have a bit better an idea of how many people are reading this. Before, I thought it was just a couple of friends and then only when I bugged them, "Hey, did you see my new post?". Now, it seems I have a readership (albeit minimal).
That means that any mistakes I make here are really, really public and enduring. Of course, for me that's part of the point of the blog. I want to be able to go back and see how my ideas change over the years.
Anyways, back to Rails. I was afraid that this code was wrong:
def update_my_status(user, status)
if (a_party == user)
self.a_party_status = status
else
self.b_party_status = status
end
end
I was sitting there thinking, "Wait a second, Ruby says that data members have an '@' in front of them!", quickly followed by, "Nuts, so, do I edit or delete the previous post?"
Just to be sure, I went and fired up the rails console. Very, handy, much recommended. I modified the code to look like this:
class Call < ActiveRecord::Base
def my_status(user)
if (@a_party == user)
@a_party_status
else
@b_party_status
end
end
...
I then called it in the console:
>> call = Call.find(:first)
=> #
>> call.my_status(2)
=> nil
Whew, off the hook. It seems that Ruby has "method missing" functionality, but not "member missing" functionality. So, when I put an '@' in front of it, ActiveRecord doesn't know to look up the value in @attributes. Interesting, and a bit more learned about the internals of ActiveRecord and Rails.
