I have my app talking to the MS SQL database. meaning I can retrieve data from it. I have an Office table. and it has a column called ''Marketing'' that is a foreign key to the marketing tables primary key. so I was have trouble and I set up a test environment on mac using Locomotive. I set the tables up the same way as the MQ SQL server. here are the models --------------------------------------------------------------- class Office < ActiveRecord::Base set_table_name "Office" self.primary_key = "OfficeID" belongs_to :marketing, :class_name => "Marketing", :foreign_key => "Marketing" end --------------------------------------------------------------- class Marketing < ActiveRecord::Base set_table_name "marketing" self.primary_key = "marketingid" has_many :offices end --------------------------------------------------------------- /*** controller ***/ class OfficeController < ApplicationController def index @offices = Office.find(:all) end end --------------------------------------------------------------- /*** index.rhtm ***/ <% for office in @offices %> <%= office.Name %> - <%= office.marketing.first_Name %> <% end %> <%= debug @offices %> --------------------------------------------------------------- this code works with the locomotive set up (MySQL database) and the instant rails set up with MySQL database but when I use the same code on the instantrails using the MS SQL server I get this error. --------------------------------------------------------------- You have a nil object when you didn''t expect it! The error occurred while evaluating nil.first_name --------------------------------------------------------------- I am confused. if I take out the <%= office.marketing.first_Name %> part of code it runs and in the debug it shows "Marketing"=>4 - which is correct but it also doesn''t show the marketing object within the office object. anybody have any ideas? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---