ruby require relative quesiton - ruby-on-rails

Question

Hello I am trying to learn how to make a ruby on rails app. I am stuck on the require_relative syntax. Currently I have a game_runner.rb file, that is not in the app directory, that is supposed to get a method (who_is_hider) from role.rb that is in models. Am I typing it correctly? When I run the current code I get an "uninitialized constant ApplicationRecord" error. This makes no sense since I have a application_record.rb file that has (self.abstract_class = true) inside. Thank you for your time.
game_runner.rb
require_relative './app/models/Role'
who_is_hider
role.rb
class Role < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :round
belongs_to :player
enum label: {seeker: 1, hider: 2, decoy: 3}
validates :player_id, uniqueness: {scope: :round_id}
def who_is_hider
p "made it here"
end
end
application_record.rb
class ApplicationRecord < ActiveRecord::Base
self.abstract_class = true
end

Answer 1

I am stuck on the require_relative syntax. […] Am I typing it correctly? When I run the current code I get an "uninitialized constant ApplicationRecord" error.
Yes, your syntax is correct. If your syntax were incorrect, your code wouldn't even run in the first place, and you would get a SyntaxError. The fact that your code does run and produce a NameError exception shows without a doubt that your syntax is correct.
As an easy way to check whether your syntax is correct, you can
visually inspect the syntax coloring in your editor,
visually inspect the syntax coloring in the Stack Overflow question, if you post one,
run ruby -c to check the syntax
The last one is the preferred option if you have it available, of course. But sometimes, you are writing code in an environment where you don't have a Ruby execution engine available, and in that case, you can at least use your editor or even the (admittedly not very good and easily confused) highlighting that Stack Overflow uses. While especially the latter one is not very good, it still does tend to highlight easy mistakes caused by typos, e.g. unterminated string literals.

Answer 2

Hmmm, you are using a single ruby file and expecting to load all rails environment? your Role model knows about ApplicationRecord because Rails loads a LOT of things on the background. If Rails is not in the middle then you have to explicitlly tell what thinks to load. You can require ApplicationRecord on the game_runner file or inside role.rb, but then you'll have to require ActiveRecord too.
I don't think it's a good idea to do what you are trying to do. If you wan't to run some script that depends on your environment, I'd recommend you to use a rake task, it will handle the loading of the environment. If you still want to make your game_runner.rb run as is, then you'll have to import everything the interpreter complains about until it works.