string as attribute

rubyonrails-talk
1

***** I wanted to know if it is possible to achieve what I would like to do as the first solution is impossible to do for various reasons ****

well there's always read_attribute (and remember that foo.read_attribute(:bar) is the same as foo[:bar] )

Fred

2

Frederick Cheung wrote:

3

I think rather than doing read_attribute, you should do

def get_value_for_column(attribute) send(attribute) end

because if you have

def something     read_attribute(:first) + read_attribute(:second) end

then get_value_for_column("something") would not work in case of read_attribute in get_value_for_column

-Arpit Jain

Anthony Ward wrote:

4

I think rather than doing read_attribute, you should do

def get_value_for_column(attribute) send(attribute) end

Sort of depends what problem you are trying to use (eg send won't work
if you had a legacy schema with a column name that isn't a legal name
for a ruby method).

Fred

5

yeah you are right. Thanks for clarifying :slight_smile:

Frederick Cheung wrote:

I think rather than doing read_attribute, you should do

def get_value_for_column(attribute) send(attribute) end      Sort of depends what problem you are trying to use (eg send won't work
if you had a legacy schema with a column name that isn't a legal name
for a ruby method).   

s/isn\'t/is