Using time.now.advance

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi,

I'm building somewhat of a billing system which needs to set next renewal dates for each account package. In my account_package model I have this:

class AccountPackage < ActiveRecord::Base   belongs_to :account   belongs_to :package   belongs_to :package_cycle

  before_save :set_renewal_date

  def set_renewal_date     next_renewal_date = Time.now.advance(self.package_cycle.cycle.frequency)     self.next_renewal = next_renewal_date   end end

Basically, my Cycle model has a frequency column where I've stored the strings :months => 1, :years => 1, :years => 2, etc., hoping I could just use the value in the database within the Time.now.advance() method. It doesn't work. Each time the record saves, I just get the value of Time.now in there.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

2

Basically, my Cycle model has a frequency column where I've stored the strings :months => 1, :years => 1, :years => 2, etc., hoping I could just use the value in the database within the Time.now.advance() method. It doesn't work. Each time the record saves, I just get the value of Time.now in there.

You can't pass a string, you need to pass a hash. One way of doing
that would be to use the activerecord's serialize method so that the
Cycle model would actually store the hash

Fred

3

Thanks, Fred. That makes sense. I'm not getting the following:

undefined method `' for :"months => 1":Symbol

What am I doing now?

4

Thanks, Fred. That makes sense. I'm not getting the following:

undefined method `' for :"months => 1":Symbol

It's expecting a hash that it can do on but you appear to be
passing a symbol

Fred

5

So I have a text field on a page that I enter in something for that frequency. I now have the model set to serialize :frequency. What do I need to type into the text field so that this will work? Sorry to be a bother, just at a loss and can't figure it out....

6

I found a way to do it.....

I added a frequency_unit column to my Cycles model. Now I store the string "years" or "months" or whatever in frequency_unit and store 1, 2, 3, etc. in frequency. I can then use this code, which works the way I want it to:

  before_save :set_renewal_date

  def set_renewal_date     next_renewal_date = Time.now.advance(self.package_cycle.cycle.frequency_unit.to_sym => self.package_cycle.cycle.frequency.to_i)     self.next_renewal = next_renewal_date   end