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ruby-on-railsmodeldestroy

Can't destroy record in many-to-many relationship

I'm new to Rails, so I'm sure I've made a simple mistake.

I've set up a many-to-many relationship between two models: User and Group. They're connected through the junction model GroupMember.

Here are my models (removed irrelevant stuff):

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :group_members
  has_many :groups, :through => :group_members
end

class GroupMember < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :group
  belongs_to :user
end

class Group < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :group_members
  has_many :users, :through => :group_members
end

The table for GroupMembers contains additional information about the relationship, so I didn't use has_and_belongs_to_many (as per the Rails "Active Record Associations" guide).

The problem I'm having is that I can't destroy a GroupMember.

Here's the output from rails console:

irb(main):006:0> m = GroupMember.new
=> #<GroupMember group_id: nil, user_id: nil, active: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>
irb(main):007:0> m.group_id =1
=> 1
irb(main):008:0> m.user_id = 16
=> 16
irb(main):009:0> m.save
=> true
irb(main):010:0> m.destroy
NoMethodError: undefined method `eq' for nil:NilClass
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-3.0.4/lib/active_support/whiny_nil.rb:48:in `method_missing'
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-3.0.4/lib/active_record/persistence.rb:79:in `destroy'
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-3.0.4/lib/active_record/locking/optimistic.rb:110:in `destroy'
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-3.0.4/lib/active_record/callbacks.rb:260:in `destroy'
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-3.0.4/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:413:in `_run_destroy_callbacks'
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-3.0.4/lib/active_record/callbacks.rb:260:in `destroy'
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-3.0.4/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:235:in `destroy'
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-3.0.4/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:292:in `with_transaction_returning_status'
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-3.0.4/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/database_statements.rb:139:in `transaction'
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-3.0.4/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:207:in `transaction'
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-3.0.4/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:290:in `with_transaction_returning_status'
    from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-3.0.4/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:235:in `destroy'
    from (irb):10

This is driving me crazy, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Solution

  • When you switched from the HABTM relationship to a has_many :through relationship it looks like you may have forgotten to add back the id column. Active record needs GroupMember to have an id for .destroy to work like that.

    Look for the :id => false in your migration and get rid of it. then redo the migration.

    Hope that helps.