I don't know if its efficient, or right, but ActiveRecode::Base#attributes [1]
seems to do the job
If you already know the fields, you can also do something like that :
[ :firstname, :lastname, ... ].each do |attr|
val = model.send attr
end
Hope it will help
[1] : http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html#M002047
