Mysterious associations

rubyonrails-talk
1

I have a issue with simple associations which I cannot explain. I have created a simple model Post with two attributes 'name' and 'date'. I use the following migration:

class CreatePosts < ActiveRecord::Migration   def self.up     create_table :posts do |t|       t.column :name, :string       t.column :date, :datetime     end   end

  def self.down     drop_table :posts   end end

In the console I create a new Post:

p = Post.new

=> #<Post:0xb79aa788 @new_record=true, @attributes={"name"=>nil, "date"=>nil}>

Then I assign the value "5" to both name and date:

p.name = "5"

=> "5"

p.date = "5"

=> "5"

And check the assignments:

p

=> #<Post:0xb79aa788 @new_record=true, @attributes={"name"=>"5", "date"=>"5"}>

p.name

=> "5"

p.date

=> nil

Why does the object p have the attributes both set to "5" but when I use the association it turns up with nil for the associated date.

Can anybody explain this?

Thanks, René

2

I know the string "5" is not a valid datetime. My question is why the string shows up in the inspection of the object:

p

=> #<Post:0xb79aa788 @new_record=true, @attributes={"name"=>"5", "date"=>"5"}>

but is not accessible:

p.date

=> nil

p.send(:date)

=> nil

p.attributes

=> {"name"=>"5", "date"=>nil}

Cheers, René

3

Hi,