When I fetch an object from Rails and print it out in the terminal, it returns its ID, but not when converted to JSON. Any clue why?

Question

Here's the relevant code.

This is a custom method I'm using.

/app/controllers/prep_sheets_controller.rb

  def create_back_right
    @back_sheet = PrepSheet.new().new_back_right
    puts '-----------------------------------------'
    puts @back_sheet
    puts "this is the back sheet id below"
    puts @back_sheet[:id]

    if @back_sheet
      render json: @back_sheet
      # normally I have a render :show template, but it fails because the id returns as null.
    else
      render plain: "nope"
    end
  end

/app/models/prep_sheet.rb

class PrepSheet < ApplicationRecord

  def new_back_right
    self.assign_time_and_date
    self.category = 'Back Fridge'
    self.subcategory = 'Right'
    self.save!
    items = self.create_prep_items_back_right
    create_relations(self, items)
    self.save!
    puts self[:id]
    return self
  end

  def create_prep_items_back_right
    items = PrepItem.create!([
    ... #it's just Item Objects, this part is fine. 
    ])
    return items
  end

/config/routes.rb

Rails.application.routes.draw do
 scope :api, defaults: { format: :json } do     
...
    post 'back_bar_prep_sheets/new_right' => 'prep_sheets#create_back_right'
... 
  end
end

The terminal when I run the method: Terminal Screenshot

The Postman response: Postman Screenshot

I was troubleshooting why my React frontend wasn't recieving the Prep Sheet Object normally, but it turned up as null because the :id attribute was null. So I isolated the problem and saw it was a backend problem, occurring when I render @back_sheet to json.

I'm able to recall its id fine before hand, as seen in the terminal, and it shows up in my database with its id. However, no matter if I try rendering it to json manually using 'render json' or using a template, its id doesn't seem to show up. The object itself is saved once it has been created, and saved once item relations are created.

Any idea as to why the id won't persist to json?

Answer 1

Oh jeez, I fixed it. Turns out (not sure exactly why) it was the attr_reader for the id in the prep_sheet.rb model that was bugging it out. Once it was deleted, it was smooth sailing. Thank you all for your time and effort!

I had my suspicions reading this link on github: https://github.com/rails/rails/issues/48242