title: Private method select called for class - Rails
body: <p>I have the following code inside my controller:</p>
  
  <p><code>array = Contact.select(:name).distinct</code></p>
  
  <p>The idea is that this would create an array of all <code>Contact</code> models with a unique <code>:name</code> attribute. However, it's throwing this error:</p>
  
  <p><code>NoMethodError (private method 'select' called for Contact:Class)</code></p>
  
  <p>What's the misunderstanding here? For what it's worth, the method calling this line of code is not defined in the controller as private.</p>
  
  <h1>EDIT:</h1>
  
  <p>Here's the actual code:</p>
  
  <h1>Controller</h1>
  
  <pre><code>class FluidsurveysController &lt; ApplicationController
  
    def index
    end
  
    def import_contacts
      @survey_provider = FluidsurveysProviders::SurveyProvider.new()
  
      @current_month = Time.new.strftime("%B%Y%d")
  
      fs_contact_list_array = csv_to_array(params[:file].tempfile)
      @fs_contacts_array = []
  
      fs_contact_list_array.each do |hash|
        @fs_contacts_array &lt;&lt; Contact.new(hash)
      end
  
     array = Contact.select(:name).distinct
     end
  end
  </code></pre>
  
  <h1>Model</h1>
  
  <pre><code>class Contact
    include ActiveModel::Model
    attr_reader :client_id, :client_name, :branch_id, :branch, :short_name, :unit_id, :membership_id,
                :first_name, :last_name, :date_of_birth, :change_date_time, :membership_type,
                :home_phone, :email_address, :anniversary_years
  
  
    def initialize(fs_contact_hash = {})
      @client_id = fs_contact_hash.fetch('ClientID')
      @client_name = fs_contact_hash.fetch('ClientName')
      @branch_id = fs_contact_hash.fetch('branchID1')
      @branch = fs_contact_hash.fetch('branch')
      @name = fs_contact_hash.fetch('ShortName')
      @unit_id = fs_contact_hash.fetch('UnitID')
      @membership_id = fs_contact_hash.fetch('MemberID')
      @first_name = fs_contact_hash.fetch('FirstName')
      @last_name = fs_contact_hash.fetch('LastName')
      @date_of_birth = fs_contact_hash.fetch('DateOfBirth')
      @change_date_time = fs_contact_hash.fetch('ChangeDateTime')
      @membership_type = fs_contact_hash.fetch('MembershipType')
      @home_phone = fs_contact_hash.fetch('HomePhone')
      @email_address = fs_contact_hash.fetch('EMail1')
      @anniversary_years = fs_contact_hash.fetch('Years')
    end
  end
  </code></pre>