Question

I have a form that I want a user to put in their name and email, which get stored in a session. They can then post text in a chat box.

In my view, to create the initial session:

<%= simple_form_for(@comments, :url => guest_login_order_path(@order)) do |f| %>
        <input name="comment[new_user_comment_name]" />
        <input name="comment[new_user_comment_email]" />
        <%= f.button :submit, :value => 'Guest Signin', :class => '' %>
    <% end %>

This goes to my controller:

def guest_login
    @order = Order.where(:public_hash => params[:public_hash]).first
    session[:new_user_account] = params[:new_user]

    respond_to do |format|
      if session[:new_user_account]
        format.html { redirect_to @order, notice: 'Your account has been created.' }
        format.json { render json: @order, status: :created, location: @order }
      else
        format.html { render action: "invoice" }
        format.json { render json: @order.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
      end
    end
  end

The params get passed correctly but I’m not quite sure if the cookie is being created. Is there way to specify a name so I can see if it was created? Also in the view, would I have a conditional then to see if there is a session present?

Answer 1

Rails creates a session for you so you don’t need to check if it’s present. If you’d like to easily retrieve the user from the session you can create a helper method in your application controller:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
    def current_user
        @current_user ||= session[:new_user_account]
    end

    helper_method :current_user
end

This method will be available to other controllers and views in your app.