Ruby Sinatra Upload Form params Disturbed - ruby

Question

Upon submitting a form in Sinatra, I'm coming up with the following error:
App 40327 output: 2018-06-28 02:59:17 - NoMethodError - undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass:
App 40327 output: /Library/WebServer/Documents/blammo/routes/publish.rb:87:in `block in <class:MyApp>'
The form is a file upload form, and a single text field. Simple. The file goes through, as does the text field. They are both captured just fine.
I submit the params to a method, which is ultimately responsible for generating the error on the following line down the page:
fname = params[:s_single_file_upload][:filename]
The method in question returns fine with a boolean. I've rewritten it a couple of ways and flushed out anything that might trip something I'm
unfamiliar with.
So the params is messed up if this method mentioned above is being called. So fname can't be assigned. I expect the params to be intact
at this point in the code. Is there any destruction if the params are perused before this point? In another language, I've seen params destroyed
in one way or another for some reason, but I'm not sure about Ruby.
I'm not finding any nil:NilClass, but that's exactly what it's reporting. Here's the trigger of this method:
result = Alpha::rf_alpha_sniff(params)
And the module::method:
module Alpha
def self.rf_alpha_sniff(incoming)
qualifiers = %w(alpha bravo charlie delta echo foxtrot)
incoming.delete('captures')
incoming.delete('splat') # take out Mustermann's 'captures' and 'splat'
incoming.delete('s_single_file_upload') # non-perusal 'single_file_upload'
incoming.values.each do |item|
item = item.gsub(" ","_")
Dev::hq_log("item: #{ qualifiers.include?(item.downcase) }")
return true if qualifiers.include?(item.downcase)
end
return false
end
end
So the page progresses fine without this method. When the method is induced any way, the params seem to get screwed up, so the file is pretty much
gone.
How is this method interfering with the params so that it's unavailable later on down the script? I'm expecting it to be fully available everywhere.

Answer 1

Turns out, using incoming.delete was deleting items from the params hash, as it was a reference to the original, instead of using a copy.
So, I have to copy the params by using params.dup (duplicate) so they are not the same object.
Having a view of the params hash post-testing-method, showed me that objects were indeed deleted. Another one solved.