link_to 'delete' is not destroying a record - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm following along with the rails tutorial by Michael Hartl Chapter 13 but instead of microposts, I'm creating animals.
My view of animals shows a "delete" hyperlink that is supposed to delete an animal record from my list but the view action doesn't seem to get to the point where it uses the destroy method at all.
I read through all the answers in a similar post here but did not find those answers to help in my case.
I'm currently in a development environment on AWS cloud9 as instructed in the tutorial. I really appreciate any pointers as I have been struggling with this one for days.
Here is my code from the view:
<li id="animal-<%= animal.id %>">
<%= link_to gravatar_for(animal.user, size: 50), animal.user %>
<span class="user"><%= link_to animal.user.name, animal.user %></span>
<span class="ear_tag"><%= animal.ear_tag %></span>
<span class="timestamp">
Posted <%= time_ago_in_words(animal.created_at) %> ago.
<% if current_user?(animal.user) %>
<%= link_to "delete", animal, method: :delete, data: { confirm: "You sure?" } %>
<% end %>
</span>
</li>
This view is called from a feed view:
<% if #feed_items.any? %>
<ol class="animals">
<%= render #feed_items %>
</ol>
<%= will_paginate #feed_items %>
<% end %>
Which comes from the home page view:
<div class="col-md-8">
<h3>Animal Feed</h3>
<%= render 'shared/feed' %>
</div>
I have reviewed the <%= link_to... line many times and it seems to be correct. My controller code is:
class AnimalsController < ApplicationController
before_action :logged_in_user, only: [:create, :destroy]
before_action :correct_user, only: :destroy
def destroy
#animal.destroy
flash[:success] = "Animal deleted"
redirect_to request.referrer || root_url
end
def correct_user
#animal = current_user.animals.find_by(id: params[:id])
redirect_to root_url if #animals.nil?
end
end
I noticed that I never see the flash "Animal deleted" so that tells me I probably don't get to that point in the controller method.
My model code is:
class Animal < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :user
default_scope -> {order(created_at: :desc) }
validates :user_id, presence: true
validates :ear_tag, presence: true, length: {maximum: 20}
end
Here is my application.js file from app/assets/javascripts:
//= require jquery
//= require bootstrap
//= require rails-ujs
//= require turbolinks
//= require_tree
Here is what the server log says after I click on the "delete" tag in my rendered view in the browser:
Started DELETE "/animals/308" for 23.25.133.17 at 2018-09-06 21:11:06 +0000
Processing by AnimalsController#destroy as HTML
Parameters: {"authenticity_token"=>"vwF6cWow+6B3BxOiJElVY0aQmMGr4WLWDOCxgB0C03nRLcQDKC3YCUqBr4ahVwlSKN7bEYRrmGytyI1fPgvavw==", "id"=>"308"}
User Load (0.1ms) SELECT "users".* FROM "users" WHERE "users"."id" = ? LIMIT ? [["id", 102], ["LIMIT", 1]]
Animal Load (0.2ms) SELECT "animals".* FROM "animals" WHERE "animals"."user_id" = ? AND "animals"."id" = ? ORDER BY "animals"."created_at" DESC LIMIT ? [["user_id", 102], ["id", 308], ["LIMIT", 1]]
Redirected to https://cabfa13dd4f34e67b634d4f52a7a046f.vfs.cloud9.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/
Filter chain halted as :correct_user rendered or redirected
Completed 302 Found in 4ms (ActiveRecord: 0.3ms)
I also found one of my tests to fail:
FAIL["test_animal_interface", AnimalsInterfaceTest, 1.5248641059999954]
test_animal_interface#AnimalsInterfaceTest (1.53s)
"Animal.count" didn't change by -1.
Expected: 38
Actual: 39
test/integration/animals_interface_test.rb:33:in `block in <class:AnimalsInterfaceTest>'

Answer 1

Filter chain halted as :correct_user rendered or redirected
The problem is you have #animals(which is not defined) instead of #animal, so redirect_to root_url if #animals.nil? always succeeds which results in destroy action failing always. You should change #animals to #animal
def correct_user
#animal = current_user.animals.find_by(id: params[:id])
redirect_to root_url if #animal.nil?
end