# Weird assignment problem, very confused :( **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 29, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213 "2011-08-29T18:06:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dubstep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/cdc98d/32.png) [@dubstep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dubstep)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/1 "2011-08-29T18:06:31Z")
Hey, I have the following line in my controller: User.create(:email =\> “removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid”, :password =\> ‘asldfkjadsfadsf’, :ip =\> request.remote\_ip) my IP is 127.0.0.1 - now User.find\_by\_ip(‘127.0.0.1’) returns 0 records although User.first contains ‘127.0.0.1’ if I change it to: User.create(:email =\> “removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid”, :password =\> ‘asldfkjadsfadsf’, :ip =\> ‘127.0.0.1’) the finder returns the record The model is a devise model, ip is attr\_accessible Can anyone please help me getting out of this confusion? I don’t understand it ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/2 "2011-08-29T19:36:07Z")
This is really weird, either a bug (it’s 3.1 rc5) or I don’t know: 1. DocType.create(:name =\> request.remote\_ip) DocType.find\_by\_name(‘127.0.0.1’) DocType Load (1.4ms) SELECT “doc\_types”.\* FROM “doc\_types” WHERE “doc\_types”.“name” = ‘127.0.0.1’ LIMIT 1 =\> nil DocType.create(:name =\> “127.0.0.1”) DocType.find\_by\_name(‘127.0.0.1’) DocType Load (1.4ms) SELECT “doc\_types”.\* FROM “doc\_types” WHERE “doc\_types”.“name” = ‘127.0.0.1’ LIMIT 1 =\> #\ ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/3 "2011-08-29T20:04:30Z")
On Aug 29, 6:34pm, sol [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > This is really weird, either a bug (it’s 3.1 rc5) or I don’t know: > > 1. DocType.create(:name =\> request.remote\_ip) > DocType.find\_by\_name(‘127.0.0.1’) > DocType Load (1.4ms) SELECT “doc\_types”.\* FROM “doc\_types” WHERE > “doc\_types”.“name” = ‘127.0.0.1’ LIMIT 1 > =\> nil So what’s actually in the database in that case? Any unexpected characters (new lines etc.) ? Fred ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/4 "2011-08-29T20:06:13Z")
What does `User.first.ip.inspect` return in the two cases? ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 11:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/5 "2011-08-29T23:10:25Z")
how can I get more details about the encoding/chars in the dbconsole? sqlite\> select name from doc\_types; 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 On 29 Aug., 20:02, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 11:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/6 "2011-08-29T23:14:45Z")
inspect returns: ruby-1.9.2-p180 :009 \> DocType.all.map {|d| d.name.inspect} DocType Load (1.4ms) SELECT “doc\_types”.\* FROM “doc\_types” =\> ["“127.0.0.1"”, "“127.0.0.1"”] and as above find only returns on of them (the one using request.remote\_ip ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 11:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/7 "2011-08-29T23:40:38Z")
the output for the above lines is: String 127.0.0.1 (.ip) 127.0.0.1 (.ip.to\_s) 127.0.0.1 “#{d.ip}” “127.0.0.1” ip.inspect no idea what this could be else… the size is 9 in all examples ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 11:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/8 "2011-08-29T23:14:45Z")
Quoting sol [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > This is really weird, either a bug (it’s 3.1 rc5) or I don’t know: > > 1. DocType.create(:name =\> request.remote\_ip) > DocType.find\_by\_name(‘127.0.0.1’) > DocType Load (1.4ms) SELECT “doc\_types”.\* FROM “doc\_types” WHERE > “doc\_types”.“name” = ‘127.0.0.1’ LIMIT 1 > =\> nil Dynamic typing is wonderful, until it isn’t. My hypothesis is that remote\_ip is not a Fixnum or Bignum but a custom class that overrides to\_s. To test the hypothesis, I’d run the following in the console of writing to the log. puts request.remote\_ip.class puts request.remote\_ip puts request.remote\_ip.to\_s puts “#{request.remote\_ip}” puts request.remote\_ip.inspect DocType.create(:name =\> request.remote\_ip) DocType.last DocType.create(:name =\> request.remote\_ip.to\_s) DocType.last Somewhere in this, I expect the truth will be revealed. A IPv4 address is a 32 bit, unsigned number. It is usually represented/rendered in dotted quad notation, but 0x7F000001 or 2130706433 are equally valid representations of the local or loopback interface’s IPv4 address. HTH, Jeffrey ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/9 "2011-08-30T00:44:06Z")
Christoph B. wrote in post #1019055: > Hey, I have the following line in my controller: > > User.create(:email =\> “[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)”, :password =\> > ‘asldfkjadsfadsf’, :ip =\> request.remote\_ip) > > now User.find\_by\_ip(‘127.0.0.1’) returns 0 > records > > if I change it to: > > User.create(:email =\> “[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)”, :password =\> > ‘asldfkjadsfadsf’, :ip =\> ‘127.0.0.1’) > the finder returns the record That seems like definitive proof that: request.remote\_ip != ‘127.0.0.1’ In fact you could test that: if request.remote\_ip == ‘127.0.0.1’ puts ‘yes’ else puts ‘no’ end > inspect returns: > > ruby-1.9.2-p180 :009 \> DocType.all.map {|d| d.name.inspect} > DocType Load (1.4ms) SELECT “doc\_types”.\* FROM “doc\_types” > =\> [“"127.0.0.1"”, “"127.0.0.1"”] The output shows that the string is actually “127.0.0.1”–not 127.0.0.1. For example: data = [ %q{“127.0.0.1”}, %q{127.0.0.1} ] data.each do |str| p str end –output:– “"127.0.0.1"” “127.0.0.1” See the difference? ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 9:17am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/10 "2011-08-30T09:17:18Z")
I am sorry, Christoph, but from your post it is not clear, how you create a record with :ip =\> request.remote\_ip You probably cannot do this in console (request.remote\_ip not defined), so you’ll have to test it all in controller. Can you do it in 3 steps: 1. create two records in the database (with a string and with request.remote\_ip ), 2. see what is in the database (there is, for example, a firefox extension to browse an sqlite database), 3. verify in console that the records look identical, but find\_by\_ip returns only one? This is what i would do. Alexey. ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 9:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/11 "2011-08-30T09:04:55Z")
7stud – wrote in post #1019114: > > inspect returns: > > > > ruby-1.9.2-p180 :009 \> DocType.all.map {|d| d.name.inspect} > > DocType Load (1.4ms) SELECT “doc\_types”.\* FROM “doc\_types” > > =\> [“"127.0.0.1"”, “"127.0.0.1"”] > > The output shows that the string is actually “127.0.0.1”–not 127.0.0.1. I disagree, this output shows only that the `inspect` of the string is (unquoted) “127.0.0.1”, but the string itself is (unquoted) 127.0.0.1. So this does not clarify the issue. Alexey. ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 10:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/12 "2011-08-30T10:29:40Z")
This is strange, given that `request.remote_ip.class` returns String. What if you use `request.remote_ip.to_s` instead of `request.remote_ip` everywhere? If this does not fix it, than it looks like a bug to me. I also have an application where i store IP addresses, but i didn’t try yet to find by ip, and the IP returned by `request.remote_ip` looked like a string to me. I would be interested to understand what’s the difference. ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 10:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/13 "2011-08-30T10:10:46Z")
I found out with sqlite’s ‘dump’ why it does not work, here is the full thing: > it seems its in a different representation, now I am not sure if this is a rails bug or what to do with it ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 10:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/14 "2011-08-30T10:41:47Z")
Christophe, I have just tested my application: i use `request.remote_ip`, and `find_by_ip('127.0.0.1')` works for me. If you describe a minimal example how to reproduce your problem, i can try to test it. I use rails 3.1rc6 and ruby 1.9.2 Alexey. ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 11:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/15 "2011-08-30T11:06:01Z")
I also use sqlite in development, this is from my Gemfile: group :development do gem ‘sqlite3’ end ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 11:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/16 "2011-08-30T11:44:48Z")
On Aug 30, 9:07am, sol [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I found out with sqlite’s ‘dump’ why it does not work, here is the > full thing: > > [gist:9fa01f6d150c3be6bd04 · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/9fa01f6d150c3be6bd04) > > it seems its in a different representation, now I am not sure if this > is a rails bug or what to do with it That byte sequence is in fact exactly the same as 127.0.0.1 (if you encoding is ascii or anything that agrees with ascii for the lower 7 bits). For me this points at an encoding problem, but I’m not sure why this would happen. You might try sticking some breakpoints in the active record code to see what the difference is (or check if the ruby encoding of the two strings you have differ) Fred ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 11:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/17 "2011-08-30T11:01:31Z")
Thanks a lot for the efforts! The example should be in the gist I posted above, thats exactly what I am doing However, which database are you using? It is sqlite for me, and I think it might be the sqlite driver ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 11:57am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/18 "2011-08-30T11:57:10Z")
Thanks a lot Alexey, very helpful! I’ve opened a bug but I’m not sure if it is rails or sqlite3 related: > > > Hey, I need some clarification because I really don't understand it > > If I assign… request.remote\_ip to an objects attribute and persist it, its not found again because apparently its stored in hex representation in the database. > > I explained the process here: https://gist.github.com/9fa01f6d150c3be6bd04 > > I'm currently using rails 3.1 rc8 > The actual method is calling .to\_s on the obtained ip > > can anyone explain this to me please? so I also opened it in sqlite3: > > > Hey, > > I actually filed a rails bug about this, but I think it might rather be sq…lite3: > > Here is the explanation: https://gist.github.com/9fa01f6d150c3be6bd04 > > I'm storing a String class value in the database, and somehow it is represented in hex - not sure if sqlite3 does this but I assume it might be okay. > > However, a where query like select \\\* from doc\_types where name = '127.0.0.1' does not return the result then > > Can anyone please enlighten me a bit? I'm very confused ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 11:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/19 "2011-08-30T11:49:42Z")
I confirm that there is a problem. This is with Rails 3.1.0rc8 $ rails new test\_ip $ cd test\_ip $ rails generate model MyModel ip:string description:string $ rake db:migrate $ rails generate controller Writer write\_records app/controllers/writer\_controller.rb: class WriterController \< ApplicationController def write\_records MyModel.create!(:ip =\> request.remote\_ip, :description =\> ‘request’) MyModel.create!(:ip =\> ‘127.0.0.1’, :description =\> ‘string’) end end $ rails s go to [http://localhost:3000/writer/write\_records](http://localhost:3000/writer/write_records) $ rails c > MyModel.all > MyModel Load (0.2ms) SELECT “my\_models”.\* FROM “my\_models” > =\> [#\ created\_at: “2011-08-30 09:42:09”, updated\_at: “2011-08-30 09:42:09”\>, > #\ “2011-08-30 09:42:09”, updated\_at: “2011-08-30 09:42:09”\>] > MyModel.where(:ip =\> ‘127.0.0.1’).all > MyModel Load (0.2ms) SELECT “my\_models”.\* FROM “my\_models” WHERE > “my\_models”.“ip” = ‘127.0.0.1’ > =\> [#\ created\_at: “2011-08-30 09:42:09”, updated\_at: “2011-08-30 09:42:09”\>] > MyModel.first.ip == ‘127.0.0.1’ > MyModel Load (0.2ms) SELECT “my\_models”.\* FROM “my\_models” LIMIT 1 > =\> true In the database for the first ip i have: X’3132372E302E302E31’ ---
**Author:** ![sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sol](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sol)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 11:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213/20 "2011-08-30T11:58:03Z")
Alexey M. wrote in post #1019158: > 7stud – wrote in post #1019114: > > > > inspect returns: > > > > > > ruby-1.9.2-p180 :009 \> DocType.all.map {|d| d.name.inspect} > > > DocType Load (1.4ms) SELECT “doc\_types”.\* FROM “doc\_types” > > > =\> [“"127.0.0.1"”, “"127.0.0.1"”] > > > > The output shows that the string is actually “127.0.0.1”–not 127.0.0.1. > > I disagree, Okay, I agree with your disagree. I have no idea what this means, though: > this output shows only that the `inspect` of the string is > (unquoted) “127.0.0.1”, but the string itself is (unquoted) 127.0.0.1. > So this does not clarify the issue. > > Alexey. strings = [ “abc”, %q(“abc”) ] results = strings.map do |str| str.inspect end p results results.each do |str| puts str end –output:– [“"abc"”, “"\"abc\""”] “abc” “"abc"” The second element in the array is hard to interpret: if you strip away what inspect added to the first string, you get: \"abc\" I guess \ is a literal slash and ' is an escaped quote. [Next page](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-assignment-problem-very-confused/211213.md?page=2)