Undefined method for nil:NILClass

Troubleshoot undefined method error under 3 min

The Undefined method for nil:NILClass occurs when you attempt to use a formula on a blank datapill. This indicates that the datapill was not provided any value at runtime.

Example of Undefined method for nil:NILClass

Solution

Since the value of a datapill at runtime is unknown beforehand, Workato recommends building recipes that are responsive to such situations.

Add the & safe navigation operator to your formula. For example:

[Datapill]&.capitalize

This operator first checks if the datapill has a valid value. If the datapill is valid, it performs the specified formula. Otherwise, it skips the formula and return null. This solution prevents the Undefined method for nil:NILClass error from stopping your recipes.

Example of using the safe navigation operator with the .capitalize formula

Learn more about the safe navigation operator.

Why does this error occur?

This occurs when the value of the datapill is null at runtime. It can happen if your Get action returns records with missing fields, Search actions that return no results, or a SQL query that returns 0 rows.

In this example recipe, step 3 (Update lead in Marketo) uses a formula on a datapill from a previous step. If the output from step 2 has missing values, the datapill will not contain any value when the recipe runs.

Example of Undefined method for nil:NILClass

Since the capitalize formula does not apply to a datapill with no value, the job fails with the following error message:

Error calculating input for field 'company':
Formula received a nil value:
undefined method `capitalize' for nil:NilClass