Question

I am trying to use a before filter to prevent non-approved users from accessing a page.

To check for non-approved users, I have a method defined in an .rb file, in the /lib folder (I have several methods there that I was in various controllers and views). The method is check_user_for_current_approval(user_id).

In my controller, I tried the following variations (note that I am using RubyMine as an IDE, and it did not give me an indication that I had a syntax error):

before_filter(:only => [:new]) do |c|
    c.check_user_for_current_approval current_user.id
end

Which gave me the following error message:

NoMethodError in PaymentsController#new

private method `check_user_for_current_approval' called for #<PaymentsController:0x007ff06784f148>

The following syntax:

before_filter(:only => [:new]) do |c|
    c.send (:check_user_for_current_approval, current_user.id)
end

Produces this error:

SyntaxError in PaymentsController#new

/app/controllers/payments_controller.rb:9: syntax error, unexpected ',', expecting ')'
c.send (:check_user_for_current_approval, current_user.id)
                                         ^
/app/controllers/payments_controller.rb:9: syntax error, unexpected ')', expecting keyword_end
/app/controllers/payments_controller.rb:130: syntax error, unexpected $end, expecting keyword_end

Using this syntax:

before_filter(:only => [:new]) { check_user_for_current_approval(current_user.id) }

takes me straight to the page (filter has no effect). The different statements came from answers that I’ve seen on StackOverflow.

Answer 1

Use your first method, but make check_user_for_current_approval public.

Also:

I think the shared before_filter would be better suited in the Application Controller, rather than in a lib-file.
That would make it accessible to all controllers that extend the Application Controller, which normally all other controllers do.