Private method select called for class - Rails

Question

I have the following code inside my controller:

array = Contact.select(:name).distinct

The idea is that this would create an array of all Contact models with a unique :name attribute. However, it's throwing this error:

NoMethodError (private method 'select' called for Contact:Class)

What's the misunderstanding here? For what it's worth, the method calling this line of code is not defined in the controller as private.

EDIT:

Here's the actual code:

Controller

class FluidsurveysController < ApplicationController

  def index
  end

  def import_contacts
    @survey_provider = FluidsurveysProviders::SurveyProvider.new()

    @current_month = Time.new.strftime("%B%Y%d")

    fs_contact_list_array = csv_to_array(params[:file].tempfile)
    @fs_contacts_array = []

    fs_contact_list_array.each do |hash|
      @fs_contacts_array << Contact.new(hash)
    end

   array = Contact.select(:name).distinct
   end
end

Model

class Contact
  include ActiveModel::Model
  attr_reader :client_id, :client_name, :branch_id, :branch, :short_name, :unit_id, :membership_id,
              :first_name, :last_name, :date_of_birth, :change_date_time, :membership_type,
              :home_phone, :email_address, :anniversary_years


  def initialize(fs_contact_hash = {})
    @client_id = fs_contact_hash.fetch('ClientID')
    @client_name = fs_contact_hash.fetch('ClientName')
    @branch_id = fs_contact_hash.fetch('branchID1')
    @branch = fs_contact_hash.fetch('branch')
    @name = fs_contact_hash.fetch('ShortName')
    @unit_id = fs_contact_hash.fetch('UnitID')
    @membership_id = fs_contact_hash.fetch('MemberID')
    @first_name = fs_contact_hash.fetch('FirstName')
    @last_name = fs_contact_hash.fetch('LastName')
    @date_of_birth = fs_contact_hash.fetch('DateOfBirth')
    @change_date_time = fs_contact_hash.fetch('ChangeDateTime')
    @membership_type = fs_contact_hash.fetch('MembershipType')
    @home_phone = fs_contact_hash.fetch('HomePhone')
    @email_address = fs_contact_hash.fetch('EMail1')
    @anniversary_years = fs_contact_hash.fetch('Years')
  end
end

Answer 1

Based on your error message I am pretty sure your model is not an ActiveRecord Object.

If you want to make use of ActiveRecord#select, define your model like this.

class Contact < ActiveRecord::Base

Also you need to define your attributes in a database instead of via attr_reader to access them through ActiveRecord. See http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html#running-a-migration