Question

What is the difference in the objects created with these 2 methods:

tec = Technique.find(6)
tec2 = Technique.where(:korean => 'Jok Sul')

The data returned for each is exactly the same, yet the first object will respond perfectly to an inherited method like update_attributes while the second object will give an error of method not found.

When I do tec.class and tec2.class one is an ActiveRecord::Relation and the other doesn’t give me a class at all, it just prints out the content of the object.

Maybe when you use the .where method you get an array, even if there is only one match and therefore you always have to issue the .each method to get at the contents? But that makes it hard to deal with when you want to update records, etc.

Can someone clarify this for me? Specifically, how to deal with matches found through the .where method.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Try:

tec2 = Technique.where(:korean => 'Jok Sul').first