• Registered: 2012-03-25
  • Posts: 16

Topic: Class scope question

I hope this the right place. My question is more ruby than rails. When I am writing models sometimes it is nessisary for me to use self and other times I don't need to. I was hoping some one could enlighten me on the subtleties that I am not seeing. They seem the same to me. Let me give you an example.This is a method in one of my models

def fetch_articles
    current_feed = get_rss_feed( 5 ) 
    debugger
    if current_feed.class == Feedzirra::Parser::RSS
      self.status = true
    else
      self.status = false
    end 
    self.save
    if status
      current_feed.entries.each do |article|
          unless Article.array_of_article_urls.include?(article.url)
            a = Article.new(title: article.title, content: article.content, source: article.url, clicks: 0)
            a.title ||= article.summary
            a.content ||= article.summary
            a.save
          end 
      end 
    end 
  end

Before I didn't have those self's it wouldn't persist the changes in the database then when I added them it worked.yet a little later this one works fine without self.

def display_status
    if status
      "<span class='label label-success'>Success</span>"
    else
      "<span class='label label-important'>Fail</span>"
    end 
  end

Last edited by tyger86 (2012-10-03 17:30:40)

  • jamesw
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • From: Leeds, UK
  • Registered: 2008-06-07
  • Posts: 2,701

Re: Class scope question

Check this out http://jimmycuadra.com/posts/self-in-ruby

What you want and what you need are too often not the same thing!
When your head is hurting from trying to solve a problem, stop standing on it. When you are the right way up you will see the problem differently and you just might find the solution.
(Quote by me 15th July 2009)
  • Registered: 2012-03-25
  • Posts: 16

Re: Class scope question

Awesome thank you. So the call to status = created a local object that never got used but just calling status since it wasn't overwritten by a local assignment actually called obj.status. Great article thank you.