best way to mask attribute values

Hello,

I am currently using helpers to format the display of attributes, but I would like to control the format of the attribute values when populating a text field and also when the model instances are populated from params once the user submits.

I've been fooling around with overriding attributes in the model, but either I am missing something or heading down the wrong path.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Dan

By 'mask' are you talking about format restrictions ?

Like that phone number field must be xxx-xxx-xxxx ?

Yes, exactly. I am using helpers for display only. I am struggling with populating text fields with the display format and not the database format.