Question

I’m not sure why this isn’t working in rails, however it works in IRB.

I’m doing something like:

response = response.first

response is an array with hashes.

In irb, when trying to simulate this, it works fine.

e.g:

>> a = [{'a'=>3}]
=> [{"a"=>3}]    
>> a = a.first   
=> {"a"=>3}      

However in debugger mode, in cucumber (in my step definition), i get this when doing the above statement:

e.g:

(rdb:1) response = response.first
NoMethodError Exception: undefined method `first' for nil:NilClass
(rdb:1) response
nil

Then, response gets set to nil.

Why are the behaviors different?

Answer 1

Are you 100% sure that response is a local variable? If response were a method that would explain the behavior you are seeing: the local variable response shadows the method response. If you want to call the response method you need to explicitly tell Ruby that want the method by either supplying an argument list or a receiver:

response = response().first
# or
response = self.response.first