accessing model attribute name dynamically

rubyonrails-talk
1

I'm calling this action from within another action:

edit_meta(@table_meta_id, @field, @content)

where @field is an attribute name for a Model. @table_meta_id is the id and @content is the new value for that attribute.

The edit_meta action looks like this:

def edit_meta(id, field, content)

    @meta = Model.find(:all, :conditions => ["id = ?", id])     @meta.field = content     @meta.updated_at = now()     @meta.save

end

Problem is that I can't figure out how to get the field argument to tell my model which attribute I want to change. I just get a "NoMethodError". How do I do that?

Thanks!

2

How about:

@meta.send("#{field}=", content)

Jamey

3

Jamey Cribbs wrote:

How about:

@meta.send("#{field}=", content)

Jamey

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 4:31 PM, Dan

That's it. Thanks!

4

Another alternative:

  ...   @meta[field] = content   ...

Jeff

5

Jeff Burlysystems wrote:

Another alternative:

  ...   @meta[field] = content   ...

Jeff

On Jul 13, 9:32�am, Dan Berger <rails-mailing-l...@andreas-s.net>

I tried that one, and it didn't work ... error message said Ruby couldn't translate {field} into an integer, even though I wanted a string.... But thanks.

6

Maybe I'm not understanding what you're sending as a val for @field, because if it's a string of the model attribute name, it should work:

$ script/console

klass = Klass.find(:first)

=> #<Klass ...>

klass.foo

=> "bar"

klass["foo"]

=> "bar"

klass["foo"] = "biz"

=> "biz"

klass["foo"]

=> "biz"

klass.foo

=> "biz"

Jeff