# Squirrel plugin produces different results between Passenger and Mongrel

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/squirrel-plugin-produces-different-results-between-passenger-and-mongrel/182055>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [January 22, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/squirrel-plugin-produces-different-results-between-passenger-and-mongrel/182055 "2010-01-22T01:26:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anmueller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/90ced4/32.png) [@anmueller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/anmueller)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/squirrel-plugin-produces-different-results-between-passenger-and-mongrel/182055/1 "2010-01-22T01:26:20Z")

</div>

For some reason the Squirrel plugin is producing two different results  
between Mongrel and Passenger.

Mongrel serves up the page with no problems and no errors in the  
development log.

Passenger gives the following error:  
NoMethodError in ContractsController#index  
undefined method `username’ for nil:NilClass

Below is my setup in relevant part.

contracts\_controller.rb:  
…  
def index  
if admin?  
@contracts = Contract.find(:all)  
else  
@contracts = Contract.find(:all) do  
user.username == current\_user.username  
end  
end  
end  
…  
end

I have also tried ‘self.user.username == current\_user.username’  
without success.

contract.rb:  
class Contract \< ActiveRecord::Base  
…  
belongs\_to :user  
…  
end

user.rb:  
class User \< ActiveRecord::Base  
acts\_as\_authentic  
…  
has\_many :contracts  
…  
end

Not sure what the problem is. Would appreciate some help.

-Alexis

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![anmueller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/90ced4/32.png) [@anmueller](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/anmueller)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2010, 5:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/squirrel-plugin-produces-different-results-between-passenger-and-mongrel/182055/2 "2010-01-22T05:12:49Z")

</div>

Ok, so I’m an idiot. I thought it was the first part of the Squirrel  
block that was the problem. But it wasn’t. I figured it out when it  
became apparent that the code wouldn’t work when the user wasn’t  
logged in.

Obviously the problem was that I was comparing user.username to  
current\_user.username, when current\_user was not set because no user  
was logged in.

Here’s the code that appears to be working properly. I should write  
some tests to make sure.

def index

# checks to see if current\_user is defined (via Authlogic) and if

its role

# is “admin”. Then find all contracts.

if admin?  
@contracts = Contract.find(:all)

# checks to see if a user is logged in then uses Squirrel to find

only

# those contracts whose username is the same as the current user.

elsif logged\_in?  
@contracts = Contract.find(:all) do  
user.username == current\_user.username  
end

# if the user is not logged in calls Authlogic’s login\_required to

# make the user log in.

else  
login\_required  
end  
end

At first, I thought I should go with nested resources here, nesting  
Contracts under Users, but then I turned to this solution to allow  
admin users to see Contracts that they didn’t create. I’m sure there’s  
better ways. I am open to suggestion.

If you are at all curious, what Thoughtbot’s Squirrel plugin allows  
you to do is to (from their site): “Squirrel is an enhancement for  
ActiveRecord’s find method that allows programmers to query the  
database using a more Rubyish syntax.”

You can find more details here:  
[http://wiki.github.com/thoughtbot/squirrel/](http://wiki.github.com/thoughtbot/squirrel/)

I’m still not sure why it worked for Mongrel, but now it works both  
ways.

-Alexis M.