Your issue is that the finders are case sensitive. I have the same exact issue with my legacy database.
Try this to watch it work:
Person.find_by_Last_Name("Smith")
That should do the trick.
I have code that I have written to fix issues like this. It's a little monkey-patch for ActiveRecord that you can insert into the specific models that you want to modify.
module ActiveRecord
class Base
# Indicates whether field names should be lowercased for legacy databse fields.
# If true, the field Product_Name will be +product_name+. If false, it will remain +Product_Name+.
# This is false, by default.
cattr_accessor :downcase_legacy_field_names, :instance_writer => false
@@downcase_legacy_field_names = false
end
end
The code above creates a new accessor on ActiveRecord called downcase_legacy_field_names. It defaults to false. When this accessor is set to true at the top of a model it will trigger the code below.
# set all accessor methods to lowercase (underscore)
# add set_columns_to_lower to each model that needs it
class << ActiveRecord::Base
# Returns a hash of all the methods added to query each of the columns in the table with the name of the method as the key
# and true as the value. This makes it possible to do O(1) lookups in respond_to? to check if a given method for attribute
# is available.
def column_methods_hash #:nodoc:
@dynamic_methods_hash ||= column_names.inject(Hash.new(false)) do |methods, attr|
attr_final = downcase_legacy_field_names ? attr.to_s.downcase : attr
attr_name = attr_final
methods[attr_final.to_sym] = attr_name
methods["#{attr_final}=".to_sym] = attr_name
methods["#{attr_final}?".to_sym] = attr_name
methods["#{attr_final}_before_type_cast".to_sym] = attr_name
methods
end
end
# adapted from: http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowToUseLegacySchemas
def downcase_legacy_field_methods
column_names.each do |name|
next if name == primary_key
a = name.to_s.underscore
define_method(a.to_sym) do
read_attribute(name)
end
define_method("#{a}=".to_sym) do |value|
write_attribute(name, value)
end
define_method("#{a}?".to_sym) do
self.send("#{name}?".to_sym)
end
end
end
end
ActiveRecord::Base.downcase_legacy_field_names = true
This code was adapted from: http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowToUseLegacySchemas
In column_methods_hash we are overriding the ActiveRecord method. This method is used to generated the list of method names that are created at runtime for your database model. We don't want to override any earlier in the process because we would be messing with ActiveRecord's ability to convert our dynamic finders (and other methods) to proper SQL statements for the legacy database.
The second method, downcase_legacy_field_methods, is a new method that will actually generate the code that the downcase'd method will execute.
All of the above code patches ActiveRecord. It's a monkey patch so it can be required anywhere after ActiveRecord is loaded. I have mine in environment.rb.
Once you have patched ActiveRecord, there is one more step that you will need to do. At the top of your legacy database model you need to have the line downcase_legacy_field_methods. It should look something like this:
class LegacyDatabaseModel < ActiveRecord::Base
downcase_legacy_field_methods
def cubits_to_feet
#conversion code goes here
end
end