Unsplash object method available from the console but not from the view - ruby-on-rails

Question

This one baffles me. I've banged my head on it for a couple of weeks now and am getting nowhere. Sorry if it's obvious, I'm still a rails newbie ish...
The app is making an API call to the Unsplash pictures service.
As such the application_helper has the following method:
def show_photo(size)
#photo = Unsplash::Photo.random(query:"cars")[:urls][size.to_sym]
end
the view has the following:
<%= image_tag(show_photo('small'), height: "220", width:"220") %>
And that displays fine.
The issue is when I want to pull some other methods from the oject. I've added another method in the application helped like this:
def show_author
#photo.user.name
end
and the corresponding view:
Photo by: <%= show_author %>
I then get this error:
undefined method `user' for #
However when calling the method in the Rails console it works fine:
#photo = Unsplash::Photo.random(query:"cars")
=> #<Unsplash::Photo:0x00000004fcf950 #attributes=#<OpenStruct id="CKeoh-
90U3E", created_at="2017 .......
2.3.0 :003 > #photo.user.name
=> "Florian Schneider"
What do I need to do to have the user.name available in the view?
Thanks a lot in advance,
Rodolphe

Answer 1

#photo is not the photo, it looks like you're calling some meta-data on #photo with [:urls][size.to_sym] and you can't call .user on top of that meta-data.
You're essentially saying Unsplash::Photo.random(query:"cars")[:urls][size.to_sym].user
You might want to do the following:
def photo
#photo ||= Unsplash::Photo.random(query:"cars")
end
def resized_photo(size)
photo[:urls][size.to_sym]
end
def photo_author_name
photo.user.name
end
btw #photo ||= is memoizing the API call so you're not making the same call multiple times.