undefined method `find_or_initialize' for a Relation

Question

I've migrated to Rails 4 from Rails 3.2. I had this:

  MyModel.find_or_initialize_by_field1("fdsfdsfds")

Now I have this

  MyModel.where(field1: "fdsfdsfds").find_or_initialize

which now causes an exception in the tests:

   undefined method `find_or_initialize' for #<ActiveRecord::Relation []>

But in the guide it says nothing about what else should be there. How to fix it?

Answer 1

That's happening because when the returned result is an empty array you can't call the find_or_initalize method on it. Try:

   MyModel.where(field1: 'asdfasdfasdf').first_or_initialize