Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Ruby Active Record Associations in Rails Active Record Associations Has One Associations

Posted by Ismail Malik
Ismail Malik
10,131 Points

Why we use "user.create_profile" to create a profile instead of "user.profile.create"? The latter doesn't work, but why?

I am curious why we don't use "user.profile.create"? Why we use "user.create_profile"?

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,261 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,261 Points

One issue is that the profile doesn't have a "create" method to call. But even if it did, before the profile is created, "user.profile" has a value of "nil", so you would not have access to any methods on it yet. So it makes sense for "create_profile" to be a separate method.