There have been several postings about how to extract a :date out of the params hash, none of which seem to make use of Rails own functionality. When a model includes a :date field, the params list coming back from a date_select view has multiple parts, each tagged with something like "(1i)". Rails calls these multi-parameter attributes. When you pass the params list directly to a model's new method, Rails parses the date just fine:
my_model = MyModel.new(params[:my_model])
However, if you want to just snag an embedded date (say, "entered_on"), it seemed like you were out of luck unless you did an end-around and created your own Date object.
Perusing the source for ActiveRecord::Base, the initialize() method (called by MyObject.new and its kin) includes this line:
self.attributes = attributes unless attributes.nil?
This line invokes ActiveRecord::Base::attributes=, which includes code to handle multi-parameter attributes. Basically, it looks for the "(" in the parameter name, causing it to invoke assign_multiparameter_attributes, which does all the magic.
So the question is, how do we arrange for the multi-parameter attribute for a date to be assigned to our model object? Here's what I came up with; I'd welcome a cleaner alternative.
my_model.attributes = params[:my_model].reject { |k,v| k !~ /^entered_on/ }
This arranges to create a (new) hash containing just the muti- parameter attribute "entered_on" (including "entered_on(1i)", "entered_on(2i)", etc.), and pass the hash to the attributes= method, which handles the date attribute.
tom.
