Anonymous user in devise - rails - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm new to rails and I tried to make simple authentication with anonymous user. I followed this tutorial and I have this error:
undefined method `find_or_initialize_by_token'
This is my AnonymousUser model:
class AnonymousUser < User
ACCESSIBLE_ATTRS = [:name, :email]
attr_accessible *ACCESSIBLE_ATTRS, :type, :token, as: :registrant
def register(params)
params = params.merge(type: 'User', token: nil)
self.update_attributes(params, as: :registrant)
end
end
This is my User model:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
devise :database_authenticatable, :confirmable, :lockable, :recoverable,
:rememberable, :registerable, :trackable, :timeoutable, :validatable,
:token_authenticatable
attr_accessible :email, :password, :password_confirmation, :remember_me
end
And the last one important is my ApplicationController which has this error:
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
protect_from_forgery
def authenticate_user!(*args)
current_user.present? || super(*args)
end
def current_user
super || AnonymousUser.find_or_initialize_by_token(anonymous_user_token).tap do |user|
user.save(validate: false) if user.new_record?
end
end
private
def anonymous_user_token
session[:user_token] ||= SecureRandom.hex(8)
end
end
Someone told me that if AnonymousUser user inherits from User then AnonymousUser have method called find_or_initialize_by_token, but i don't know how to fix it.

Answer 1

Provided you have latest rails installed, try to refactor:
# in ApplicationController#current_user
AnonymousUser.find_or_initialize_by_token(anonymous_user_token).tap do |user|
user.save(validate: false) if user.new_record?
end
to something like this:
AnonymousUser.safely_find(anonymous_user_token)
and push the find_or_initialize_by_token and save(validate: false) into the model.

Answer 2

I wrote the blog post you referenced, but today, I would use
AnonymousUser.where(anonymous_user_token: anonymous_user_token).first_or_initialize
Dynamic finders have been deprecated AFAIK.
However, #Saurabh Jain is absolutely correct in his suggestion to refactor that block into a nice little push-button class method on the AnonymousUser.