Sessions and user_id in rails

Question

I'm having a lot of trouble understanding sessions and authentication with Rails. So basically, I tried to set a session based on user_id, following a tutorial from a book. Here is the create method in my sessions_controller.rb file: ``` def create if user = User.authenticate(params[:email], params[:password]) session[:id] = user.id redirect_to root_path, :notice => 'Logged in successfully' else flash.now[:alert] = "Invalid login/password combination" render :action => 'new' end ``` end But, when I try to define a current_user method in my application_controller.rb file, it asks me to reference the session based on user_id: ``` def current_user return unless session[:user_id] @current_user = User.find_by_id(session[:user_id]) end ``` Here is what confuses me - user_id is an attribute of each Recipe (equivalent of articles or posts in my app) that creates a has_one relationship with a user. nowhere else in my application is user_id defined. so user_id shouldn't be an attribute of a Use…

Accepted Answer

In your create method it should be

```
session[:user_id] = user.id
```

You are setting up a key `:user_id` in the session hash and storing the authenticated user's id `user.id` in it for later use

Key name can be anything

Sessions and user_id in rails

Solution

Problem