Forum: Ruby on Rails Rails Expert Help Please: ActiveRecord & Multiple Database connections

Okay, so, first, complete newbie...which means that I would GREATLY
appreciate any help on this one.  Have been pulled, abruptly, in the 
middle
of trying to get something deployed, quickly...and, being a newbie, this 
is
difficult for me, but, based on everything that I've read, it actually 
is
fairly easy.

I've done this every which way but Sunday...this is my latest
attempt...take a look and let me know what steps I've missed...  Thank 
You!

I'm attempting to connect to first the prime database for this 
particular
web application, confirm or deny if a user's email address exists, and, 
if
it does exist, redirect the member over to one of our partner sites, 
while
also keeping a count on the 'users' table to ensure that the user 
doesn't
try to access the partner site more then 2x.

This is working just fine, no problems...  That's the good news...

If the application can't find the user on the application's prime 
database
site.  It now must connect to a secondary database and look for the user 
on
that database in the 'members' table.  If the email address does exist, 
it
increments the 'redirect_count' and then redirects the member over to 
one
of our partner sites.  If the member has reach the max allotted access 
to
the partner site, a message is flashed advising the user of such.

So, now for the code...note that the code provided, and the help needed, 
is
specific to connecting to, and validating (and updating) the members 
table.

This is the model file that I've created for the purpose of the 
connecting
to the secondary database, and validating  / updating the corresponding
members table.

********************************************************************************************

class DealCore < ActiveRecord::Base

  conn2 = { :adapter => 'mysql',
    :encoding => 'utf8',
    :reconnect => 'true',
    :database => 'deals_qa',
    :username => 'xxxxxx',
    :password => 'xxxxxx',
    :host => 'xx.xx.xx.xx',
    :port => 'xxxx'
  }

  self.abstract_class = true

  establish_connection (conn2["deals_#{RAILS_ENV}"])

  class User < DealCore

    def clone_to_deals
      m = Users.find_by_email(@email)
      m.redirect_count += 1
      m.save
    end

    class << self
      def email_exists?(email)
        find_by_email(email)
      end
}

...and this is the code snippet that I created to call these 'secondary'
database classes:

if @user = DealCore::User.email_exists?(@email)
                member = @user.clone_to_deals
                @Redirect_Flag = [0,1,2].include? member.redirect_count
                @Costco_Flag = true
              end

Little help...pretty please!

Thanks!

Tami