Conditional redirects

Ruby on Rails
1

Can’t seem to get past this.

Seems that the result is always false.
It must be something so simple.
Any help?

 (menu_type == 1) ? (redirect_to catering_path) : (redirect_to deli_path)

I tried with strings, 3 equal signs just in case LOL, with/without parenthesis, with/without returns
I even tried:

redirect_to catering_path if menu_type == 1

current (simplified) whole method here:

def create
  menu_type = params[:menu_type_id]
  @menu_item = MenuItem.new(menu_item_params)
  @menu_item.save
  (menu_type == 1) ? (redirect_to catering_path) : (redirect_to deli_path)
end

Thank You.

2

Sorry for the foolish question.
I took a step back and took a breath.

Now I’m using

redirect_to request.referrer

and that works just fine for my scenario.

I’m curious though, could there be any reason for why this would not be an acceptable solution according to Thoughtbot best practices?

Thanks again and sorry for any inconvenience.

1 Like
3

It’s probably because params[:menu_type_id] is in fact a string “1” not an integer 1.

4

Yes, params[] values are always strings. Often this doesn’t matter, e.g. you can call Product.find and pass an ID as a string.

But in this case where you’re doing a comparison, you would need to write menu_type == "1" or menu_type.to_i == 1.

(To confuse things, 1 == "1" would return true in JavaScript but false in Ruby!).

To debug this kind of problem, I find it useful to set a breakpoint using Pry, and then call menu.inspect to check the variable’s type.

5

Another thing to read up on? Pry? I have like 10 tabs of things I want to read. :+1: Just kidding… Thanks.

6

Andy, when you say breakpoint are you referring to something like you find at this post under the Figuring out how a method was called section?

7

@JoeGH,

Pry is an excellent tool for stopping application execution in a spot where you’re curious about what’s happening!

We’d also recommend that you avoid using the ternary operator test ? if_true : if_false, as it’s somewhat confusing to follow, and hides the branching nature of your code. The more verbose multi-line if else end statements make it very clear to a reader (who might be you in the future!) that there’s different paths in your code.