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Ruby

Posted by Nick Hennen
Nick Hennen
7,812 Points

Defining method last_name does not work.

How do I make a method in Rails 4 so it works like it should like in the treebook example?

2 Answers

Brandon Barrette
Brandon Barrette
20,485 Points
Brandon Barrette
Brandon Barrette
20,485 Points

The problem is strong_parameters in rails 4.

There are a bunch of forum posts here about this. Here's just one: https://teamtreehouse.com/forum/attraccessible-i-am-adding-firstname-lastname-profilename-but-it-wrecks-the-project-so-far-any-ideas

Nick Hennen
Nick Hennen
7,812 Points

I looked through them and I added the protected_attributes gem. I still get errors though.

Brandon Barrette
Brandon Barrette
20,485 Points
Brandon Barrette
Brandon Barrette
20,485 Points

Well the problem is that you probably saved a user to the database before this fix, which means the last_name column is empty. So when you try to call user.last_name, you are getting an error because nothing is there.

Two fixes:

  1. Delete all users from the database in the rails console. (User.delete_all), then add them again
  2. In the rails console, add the last_name to the users in the db who don't have one.

Not the attr_accessible was removed because of security reasons. I suggest learning how to use protected_attributes if you are going to proceed with rails 4.

Nick Hennen
Nick Hennen
7,812 Points

Wiped out my database once and it was going well until I had to make a last_name method. I tried to use that command but it is not recognized as an internal or external command.

I added this code to the application_controller.rb as it was suggested to use with the strong parameters:

before_action :configure_permitted_parameters, if: :devise_controller?

protected

def configure_permitted_parameters devise_parameter_sanitizer.for(:sign_up) { |u| u.permit(:first_name, :last_name, :profile_name, :email, :password, :password_confirmation, :avatar) } end

More information about that code related to devise is found here: http://devise.plataformatec.com.br/#getting-started/strong-parameters

edited to add info on devise and the code in this comment.