conditional statements

I want to do a customised search through a method in my model. One of the search conditions looks like this:

      left = params[:left][:left_id]
开发者_JAVA百科      right = params[:right][:right_id]

      status = give_status(left, right)

      where << "status_id_number = #{status}"

The params come from two drop down menus. My problem is with setting the value for status. If I do something like this it correctly sets the value from the left param:

         def self.give_status(left, right)
           return left
         end

I would like to have it setup like below. Where the left and right variables are compared and then a certain return value is assigned based on the conditions. The code below will return 2, even if I set left and right set to 1.

       def self.give_status(left, right)
         if left == 1 and right == 1
          return 1
         else 
          return 2
        end
       end

problem is that your param will return strings

def self.give_status(left, right)
  if left.to_i == 1 and right.to_i == 1
    1
  else 
    2
  end
end

Short form

def self.give_status(left, right)
  left.to_i == 1 && right.to_i == 1 ? 1 : 2
end

or get it right in the beginning:

left = params[:left][:left_id].to_i
right = params[:right][:right_id].to_i
status = give_status(left, right)
where << "status_id_number = #{status}"

def self.give_status(left, right)
  left == 1 && right == 1 ? 1 : 2
end