Rails increment login counter

Question

In my User model, I have a 'sign_in_count' column which I initially set to 1 when the user is created:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base

before_save { self.sign_in_count = 1 }

end

This works as when I go to the rails console, I can get back 1:

u = User.last
u.sign_in_count
=> 1

Then I created a method in my SessionsHelper:

def sign_in_count(user)
  user.sign_in_count += 1
end

Then I call it my SessionsController like so:

def create
  user = User.find_by(email: params[:session][:email].downcase)
  if user && user.authenticate(params[:session][:password])
     log_in user 
     sign_in_count(user)
.
.
.
end

But the sign_in_count never seems to increment. I log in perfectly fine. I get no errors or anything. I inspect the console and the sign_in_count is always 1. Any idea as to what i'm doing wrong here?

Answer 1

Use increment method (detail) instead of, like this:

def sign_in_count(user)
  user.increment!(:sign_in_count)
end

And, please change before_save callback to before_create callback. We just initialize sign_in_count only one time when new user is created.

In case of you want to decrease sign_in_count, please use decrement.