# Help please on Ruby on Rails Migrations: "rake aborted! undefined local variable or method name 'ss

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-please-on-ruby-on-rails-migrations-rake-aborted-undefined-local-variable-or-method-name-ss/140531>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [June 15, 2008, 8:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-please-on-ruby-on-rails-migrations-rake-aborted-undefined-local-variable-or-method-name-ss/140531 "2008-06-15T20:57:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rubynewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/58f4c7/32.png) [@rubynewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubynewbie)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2008, 8:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-please-on-ruby-on-rails-migrations-rake-aborted-undefined-local-variable-or-method-name-ss/140531/1 "2008-06-15T20:57:43Z")

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Environment: Windows Vista, running Ruby 1.8.6 on Rails 2.1, MySql 5.0/  
PostGreSql 8.3.1

I’m enjoying going through a ruby on rails example and learning the  
power of ruby and rails. I’m in need of help. The migrations script  
is simply trying to create a new Users table with 3 columns. The  
erorr I get perpetually is "Rake aborted! Undefined local variable or  
method name ‘ss’ in main:object. I can’t find any hits on the web  
with this error. I’ve tried changing databases, reinstalling,  
restarting db, web server, etc… rebooting but to no avail. The  
strange thing is that the script does seem to be able to create the  
rails system’s “schema\_info” table with a single record with a single  
column with a value of ZERO to indicate that the db is at version=0.  
Please advise?

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**Author:** ![rubynewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/58f4c7/32.png) [@rubynewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubynewbie)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2008, 9:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-please-on-ruby-on-rails-migrations-rake-aborted-undefined-local-variable-or-method-name-ss/140531/2 "2008-06-15T21:03:35Z")

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On 15 Jun 2008, at 19:20, RubyNewbie wrote:

> Environment: Windows Vista, running Ruby 1.8.6 on Rails 2.1, MySql  
> 5.0/  
> PostGreSql 8.3.1
> 
> I’m enjoying going through a ruby on rails example and learning the  
> power of ruby and rails. I’m in need of help. The migrations script  
> is simply trying to create a new Users table with 3 columns. The

Obvious question: what’s in your migration ?

Fred

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rubynewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/58f4c7/32.png) [@rubynewbie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rubynewbie)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2008, 2:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/help-please-on-ruby-on-rails-migrations-rake-aborted-undefined-local-variable-or-method-name-ss/140531/3 "2008-06-16T02:08:12Z")

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It turns out this was operator error on my part. I had some stray  
text (‘ss’) at the bottom of the script that was not viewable in my  
IDE sized window. until I went and did a copy all/paste into the  
draft of my reply to you. Sorry for the silly post. Though this has  
taught me to be very vigilant about looking for all typographical  
errors in this dynamic language. I’m from a C/C++/C# background and  
will be learning new things for a long time.

Question: is it possible to ask the Aptana IDE or any other compiler  
to compile your ruby project or program and report any syntactical  
errors?

On Jun 15, 12:02 pm, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)