How would you manipulate a column's attributes?

rubyonrails-talk
1

Is there a way to do this correctly; here's my "Person" model:

def name   name.gsub("Jr.", "Junior") end

I have a "name" column in my database, and I want to replace "Jr." with "Junior" every time @person.name is called.

I'm getting a "stack level is too deep" error when I put the above definition in my model. I figure I could just rename the method to something like "filtered_name" but is there a more efficient way to do this?

2

Is there a way to do this correctly; here's my "Person" model:

def name name.gsub("Jr.", "Junior") end

I have a "name" column in my database, and I want to replace "Jr." with "Junior" every time @person.name is called.

I wouldn't do this. If you insist on it...

def name    read_attribute(name).to_s.gsub("Jr.", "Junior") end

The "to_s" will handle cases where name is nil. Or you can rescue it. nil.gsub raises an error.

Anyway, I wouldn't do it because other things might use @person.name and not realize there's some extra magic going on.

I'd create another method and name it something appropriate... filered_name, prefered_name, cleansed_name, nice_name, expanded_name, etc...

Or, create a method that works on any string called say "expand_abbreviations" and then do

@person.name.expand_abbreviations

-philip

3

ActiveRecord::Base models can act like a hash here:

http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html#M002345

4

Awesome. Thank you Philip! The @person.name.expand_abbreviations sounds like a great idea. Thanks so much. I appreciate your kind warning and your fantastic solution.

5

Hi Bob,