How to delete / destroy user in rails app from database? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I recently watched the railscast episode #250 Authentication from Scratch (revised) and I have the signup / login / logout actions working. However I am working on creating an action to delete a user from the database, but I am currently experiencing some errors when I try to delete a user.
The users_controller.rb delete / destroy actions look like the following,
def delete
# the below line calls the destroy method / action
self.destroy
end
def destroy
session[:user_id] = nil
# #user = User.find(params[:id])
#user.destroy
# User.find(parmas[:id]).destroy
# the below line didn't delete the current user :(
# #user = User.destroy
redirect_to :controller=>'users', :action => 'new'
end
The error message I'm getting in the browser when I try to delete a user looks like the following.
The page that contains the delete link looks like the following, index.html.erb
<h1>Welcome
<% if current_user %>
<%= current_user.email %>
<% end %>
</h1>
<p>You have <%= current_user.credit %> credits.</p>
<!-- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5607155/ -->
<%= link_to('Delete your account', :controller => 'users', :action => 'destroy') %>
routes.rb
Rails.application.routes.draw do
# the below generated route is not necessary
# get 'sessions/new'
# delete user route
#get 'delete' => 'users#delete'
# shortened routes, per railscast comment
get 'signup' => 'users#new'
get 'login' => 'sessions#new'
get 'logout' => 'sessions#destroy'
# get 'signup', to: 'users#new', :as 'signup'
# get 'login', to: 'sessions#new', :as 'login'
# get 'logout', to: 'sessions#destroy', :as 'logout'
resources :users
resources :sessions
root to: 'users#new'
# get 'users/new'
# the below line specifies JSON as the default API format
namespace :api, defaults: {format: 'json'} do
namespace :v1 do
resources :users
end
end

Answer 1

It stands to reason you're getting a NoMethodError, since you've never set the #user variable, that line is commented out:
def destroy
session[:user_id] = nil
# #user = User.find(params[:id]) <-- Commenting out this line was your problem
#user.destroy
Changing to
def destroy
session[:user_id] = nil
#user = User.find(params[:id])
#user.destroy
You should be good to go.
EDIT: one thing you'd probably want to do is change from using the old style of link_to, specifying the controller and action, and change to the new style, using route helpers. In this case, you'd use, i believe, link_to 'Delete your account', current_user, :method => :delete, but you can check by running rake routes, where it will list the helpers available based on your routes.rb file.

Answer 2

Well, I think you should make things a bit simpler and start from the dummiest thing, that works. First of all, if you use your controller as a resource, there would not be a delete action there, only destroy.
def destroy
User.find(params[:id]).destroy
session[:user_id] = nil
redirect_to new_user_path
end
P.S. once again, I assume that you have set resources :users in your routes.rb.
If you have a bunch of get|post|put|delete routes instead, just make sure you point the redirect correctly.