From: Xeno Campanoli <xcampanoli@...>
Date: 2008-05-29T08:25:14+09:00
Subject: Mystified by a YAML/AR interaction...????

I've got the following sequence which when run interactively yields a 
working connection to my Active Record ORM where I can get data:

     env = 'production'
     dbymlspec = "#{RAILSBASEDIR}/config/database.yml"
     conf = YAML::load(dbymlspec)
STDERR.puts "trace conf:  #{conf}"
STDERR.puts "trace conf.class:  #{conf.class}"
STDERR.puts "trace conf[#{env}]:  #{conf[environment]}"
STDERR.puts "trace conf[#{env}].class: #{conf[environment].class}"
     if conf then
         ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection(conf[environment])
     else
         puts "YAML::load returned false on dbymlspec:  #{dbymlspec}"
     end
----snip----
But the output to STDERR is:

trace conf:  /home/rotw/bnsf/config/database.yml
trace conf.class:  String
trace conf[production]:
trace conf[production].class:  NilClass

So the establish_connection method shouldn't be seeing anything but a 
nil.  What's going on here?  How come establish_connection sees the 
database, and what is the magic here?