ruby cgi wont return method calls, but will return parameters - ruby

Question

my environment: ruby 1.9.3p392 (2013-02-22 revision 39386) [x86_64-linux]
The thing is, I can make ruby return the parameters sent over GET. but when i'm trying to use them as arguements to my methods in if/else, ruby wont return anything and I end up with a blank page.
ph and pm return correctly:
http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/test.rb?hostname=node00.abit.dk&macadd=23:14:41:51:63
returns:
node00.abit.dk 23:14:41:51:63
Connection to the database (MySQL) works fine
When I test the method newHostName it outputs correctly:
puts newHostName
returns (which is correct)
node25.abit.dk
the code:
#!/usr/bin/ruby
require 'cgi'
require 'sequel'
require 'socket'
require 'timeout'
DB = Sequel.connect(:adapter=>'mysql', :host=>'localhost', :database=>'nodes', :user=>'nodeuser', :password=>'...')
#cgi-part to work
#takes 2 parameters:
#hostname & macadd
cgi = CGI.new
puts cgi.header
p = cgi.params
ph = p['hostname']
pm = p['macadd']
def nodeLookup(hostnameargv)
hostname = DB[:basenode]
h = hostname[:hostname => hostnameargv]
h1 = h[:hostname]
h2 = h[:macadd]
ary = [h1, h2]
return ary
end
def lastHostName()
#TODO: replace with correct sequel-code and NOT raw SQL
DB.fetch("SELECT hostname FROM basenode ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1") do |row|
return row[:hostname]
end
end
def newHostName()
org = lastHostName
#Need this 'hack' to make ruby grep for the number
#nodename e.g 'node01.abit.dk'
var1 = org[4]
var2 = org[5]
var3 = var1 + var2
sum = var3.to_i + 1
#puts sum
sum = "node" + sum.to_s + ".abit.dk"
return sum
end
def insertNewNode(newhost, newmac)
newnode = DB[:basenode]
newnode.insert(:hostname => newhost, :macadd => newmac)
return "#{newnode.count}"
end
#puts ph
#puts pm
#puts newHostName
cgi.out() do
cgi.html do
begin
if ph == "node00.abit.dk"
puts newHostName
else
puts nodeLookup(ph)
end
end
end
end
I feel like im missing something here. Any help is very much appreciated!
//M00kaw

Answer 1

What about modify last lines of your code as followed? CGI HTML generation methods take a block and yield the return value of the block as their content. So you should make newHostName or nodeLookup(ph) as the return value of the block passed to cgi.html(), rather than puts sth, which prints the content to your terminal and return nil. That's why cgi.html() got an empty string (nil.to_s).
#puts newHostName
cgi.out() do
cgi.html do
if ph == "node00.abit.dk"
newHostName
else
nodeLookup(ph)
end
end
end
p.s. It's conventional to indent your ruby code with 2 spaces :-)