# Reserved names

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reserved-names/145317>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 7, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reserved-names/145317 "2008-08-07T22:09:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![giaco](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/a3d4f5/32.png) [@giaco](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/giaco)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reserved-names/145317/1 "2008-08-07T22:09:56Z")

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Just spent 15-20 minutes struggling with why actions that previously  
worked were all bombing with this error:

/!\ FAILSAFE /!\ 08/07/2008 02:48 PM  
Status: 500 Internal Server Error  
wrong number of arguments (2 for 0)

/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.1.0/lib/action\_controller/base.rb:389:in  
`process’

As it turned out, I had added an action named ‘process’ that was  
overriding the one in ActionController. I suppose there is no way for  
Ruby/Rails to know when you really want to override a method or when it  
is a mistake. But it sure would be nice to have some warning when you  
accidentally stomp on something. This also is a problem with  
ActiveRecord. Name a table or a column wrong and things start to fail  
mysteriously.

Any suggestions on how to prevent making this type error in the future?

–  
Jack C.  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![giaco](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/a3d4f5/32.png) [@giaco](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/giaco)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 10:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reserved-names/145317/2 "2008-08-07T22:14:37Z")

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On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 15:08 -0500, Jack C. wrote:

> As it turned out, I had added an action named ‘process’ that was  
> overriding the one in ActionController. I suppose there is no way for  
> Ruby/Rails to know when you really want to override a method or when it  
> is a mistake. But it sure would be nice to have some warning when you  
> accidentally stomp on something. This also is a problem with  
> ActiveRecord. Name a table or a column wrong and things start to fail  
> mysteriously.
> 
> Any suggestions on how to prevent making this type error in the future?

* * *

[http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/ReservedWords](http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/ReservedWords)

Craig