Question

Having followed a tutorial online, I have a sessions controller that looks like:

class SessionsController < ApplicationController
  def new
  end

  def create
    user = User.authenticate(params[:email], params[:password])
    if user
      session[:user_id] = user.id
      redirect_to root_url, :notice => "Logged in!"
    else
      flash.now.alert = "Invalid email or password"
      render "new"
    end
  end

  def destroy
    session[:user_id] = nil
    redirect_to root_url, :notice => "Logged out!"
  end

end

There is no model & database table to back this up, although login does work. Is there any way for me to list the logged in users, or would that not be possible? How does the server persist sessions if they are not stored someplace?

Answer 1

How about this:

Update a field called last seen

class ApplicationController
  before_filter :update_last_seen
private
  def update_last_seen
    current_user.last_seen = DateTime.now
    current_user.save
  end
end

and then do a find for all users last seen within the last X minutes

@online_users = User.find :all, 
                      :conditions => ["last_seen > ?",5.minutes.ago.to_s(:db)]