# If else not working?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-else-not-working/162457>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [March 10, 2009, 4:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-else-not-working/162457 "2009-03-10T04:11:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![farfignugen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/f17d59/32.png) [@farfignugen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/farfignugen)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2009, 4:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-else-not-working/162457/1 "2009-03-10T04:11:46Z")

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I get the following error when I try to login into my admin back end:

NoMethodError in MemberController#index

You have a nil object when you didn’t expect it!  
The error occurred while evaluating nil.login

RAILS\_ROOT: C:/Ruby/MyProjects/ipod-give-away.com  
Application Trace | Framework Trace | Full Trace

app/controllers/member\_controller.rb:17:in `index’

Request

Parameters:

None

Show session dump

Response

Headers:

{“cookie”=\>[],  
“Content-Type”=\>"",  
“Cache-Control”=\>“no-cache”}

My code:  
def index  
@oLogin = User.find\_by\_login(params[:l])  
if @oLogin.login  
@sLoggedInName = @oLogin.login + “, you’ve logged in successfully”  
else  
render :controller =\> ‘sessions’  
end  
end

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![farfignugen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/f17d59/32.png) [@farfignugen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/farfignugen)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2009, 4:37am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-else-not-working/162457/2 "2009-03-10T04:37:12Z")

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Cause it didn’t return any object.  
so you must check the @oLogin first.

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 11:11 AM, Chris G. \<  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid\> wrote:

> ## Response if @oLogin.login @sLoggedInName = @oLogin.login + “, you’ve logged in successfully” else render :controller =\> ‘sessions’ end end
> 
> Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/).
> 
> >

–  
[73, 32, 108, 111, 118, 101, 32, 121, 111, 117, 32, 115, 111, 32, 109,  
117,  
99, 104, 33].map{|c| c.chr}.join

Only two surfaces of a box:  
[http://blog.pixnet.net/zusocfc](http://blog.pixnet.net/zusocfc)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![farfignugen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/f17d59/32.png) [@farfignugen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/farfignugen)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2009, 3:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/if-else-not-working/162457/3 "2009-03-10T15:28:47Z")

</div>

Chris G. wrote:

> def index  
> @oLogin = User.find\_by\_login(params[:l])  
> if @oLogin.login  
> @sLoggedInName = @oLogin.login + “, you’ve logged in successfully”  
> else  
> render :controller =\> ‘sessions’  
> end  
> end

Aesthetically, I’d change @oLogin to @user, since User.find… will  
return a User instance. I’d also avoid Hungarian notation and camelCase  
variable names.

I think the actual problem is that your call to render is wrong. I’m  
guessing you want a redirect. You might also want to read up on flash  
for messaging to the user. I’d probably write this method something like  
this:

def index  
@user = User.find\_by\_login(params[:l])  
if @user  
flash[:notice] = “#{@user.login}, you’ve logged in successfully”  
else  
redirect\_to :controller =\> ‘sessions’, :action =\> ‘new’  
end  
end