From: "Eduardo Yáñez Parareda" <eduardo.yanezNOSPAM@...>
Date: 2006-07-19T18:10:05+09:00
Subject: Rails: Saving an object into DB

I asked this in the Rails mailing list but nobody answered me, I think it is a newbie (I am a newbie) error but
I don't see the light.

In a view I have a link to a controller's action (TeamController#add_player) that calls to Player.create_player method, 
that initialize a player object then try to save it, but when it calls to save method an error happens:

NoMethodError in TeamController#add_player

You have a nil object when you didn't expect it!
The error occured while evaluating nil.keys

/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/base.rb:1557:in
`attribute_names'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/base.rb:2060:in
`clone_attributes'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/base.rb:1519:in
`attributes'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/base.rb:1945:in
`attributes_with_quotes'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/base.rb:1725:in
`update_without_lock'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/locking.rb:33:in
`update_without_callbacks'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/callbacks.rb:274:in
`update_without_timestamps'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/timestamp.rb:39:in
`update'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/base.rb:1718:in
`create_or_update_without_callbacks'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/callbacks.rb:249:in
`create_or_update'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/base.rb:1392:in
`save_without_validation'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/validations.rb:724:in
`save_without_transactions'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:126:in
`save'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/database_statements.rb:51:in
`transaction'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:91:in
`transaction'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:118:in
`transaction'
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.3/lib/active_record/transactions.rb:126:in
`save'
#{RAILS_ROOT}/app/models/player.rb:15:in `create_player'
app/controllers/team_controller.rb:53:in `add_player'

And my Player model is:

class Player < ActiveRecord::Base
   belongs_to :team

   # Crea un jugador con los valores por defecto
   def Player.create_player(team_id)
     player = Player.new
     player.relate_to_team(team_id)
     player.save <-------------------------------- LINE 15
     return player
   end

   # Relaciona el jugador con un equipo
   def relate_to_team(team_id)
     @team_id = team_id
   end
end

What means that error? Anybody knows what I'm doing wrong?