Forum: Ruby on Rails Method not receiving object values

Hi everyone,

I'm having a weird issue

I have a Study model that has several fields, but to mention a few (or
that ones that I'm having troubles with) are

- profesion_related
- profesion_name

I have this in my controller

def create
  @study = Study.new(params[:study])
  respond_to do |format|
    if @study.save
       #code here
    else
       #more code here
    end
  end
end

and in my model

class Study < AR....
  #there are other attr_accessible but just wanted to show this
  attr_accessible :profesion_related
  attr_accessor :profesion_related

  def profesion_related=(id)
    profesion_parent = Profesion.find(id)
    ######below here the last attribute is the one that is empty
    new_profesion = Profesion.create({m_code: profesion_parent.m_code,
g_code: profesion_parent.g_code, name: self.profesion_name})
  end

end

I'm getting an error there because self.profesion_name is empty, but
in my log I see that it's being sent and also if I put in my create
action

       @study = Study.new(params[:study]
->     puts @study.to_yaml
        respond_to

I can see that the object @study has every single attribute filled,
but inside the profesion_related method in my model, the
self.profesion_name is empty

What could be wrong with this?
Hope someone can help me

Thanks in advance

It's possible that the profesion_name is not set yet -- you might want 
to
consider creating the Profesion model in a before_save callback. I 
suspect
there are some issues with how this is model, but hopeful this 
suggestion
will get you moving foward.

Cheers, Nicholas

On Jan 2, 10:42pm, JavierQQ <jquari...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,


> I can see that the object @study has every single attribute filled,
> but inside the profesion_related method in my model, the
> self.profesion_name is empty
>
> What could be wrong with this?
> Hope someone can help

An activerecord object's initialize method basically does

attributes.each do |attr_name, value |
    send("#{attr_name}=", value)
end

So at some point it will call self.profession_name = and at some point
it will call self.profession_related but there's no particular order
that is is guaranteed to happen in (on ruby 1.9 I wouldn't be
surprised if it was the order of the fields on the page)

You might want to consider building the profession either outside of
new entirely or in a callback. It's also possible that how you've
modelled it is making it more complicated than it has to be but it's
hard to tell that from here.

Fred

Hi guys,

Thanks both for the reply, I know it could be done by using a callback 
but
there are more code inside that method.
I'm using profesion_related as mentioned here
http://railscasts.com/episodes/16-virtual-attributes (as well as other 
code
inside that method)

On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 3:22 AM, Frederick Cheung 
<frederick.cheung@gmail.com
> wrote:

> surprised if it was the order of the fields on the page)
>
>
Indeed, I was trying so many times that I was wondering if it may have 
an
special order of setting the values and it may be doing that method 
BEFORE
filling the other values.
It seems that the best way to avoid this is by doing a callback (in that
case I will have to change more code :/).

Is a way of telling AR to use that method after every other?

Thanks

Javier

No, there isn't. Callbacks are your best bet.

--
Dheeraj Kumar

On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 8:52 AM, Dheeraj Kumar 
<a.dheeraj.kumar@gmail.com>wrote:

> No, there isn't. Callbacks are your best bet.
>
>
In the end I made a before_validation callback and inside that I'm using
the virtual attribute, but I'm still wondering how AR order the list of
attributes

I started here
https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/3-2-stable/act...
but
I'm not sure where should I go next. Hope somebody can guide me

Thanks

Javier

IMHO AR lists the attributes as it receives them from schema and any 
virtual attributes from the model. This is because attributes is a hash, 
and Ruby 1.9 maintains the key order in a hash.

If your code depends on the order of attributes defined, it's definitely 
a smell.

--
Dheeraj Kumar

On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Javier Quarite <jquarites@gmail.com> 
wrote:
> virtual attribute, but I'm still wondering how AR order the list of
> attributes
>
> I started here
> 
https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/3-2-stable/act...
> but I'm not sure where should I go next. Hope somebody can guide me

Here is a link to view the assignment of attributes in ActiveRecord code 
base:
https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/3-2-stable/act...

Well, I did a before_validation callback

def bv_callback
   puts self.to_yaml
end

and I can see that the object has profesion_name (and every other)
attribute setted

but here

def profesion_related=(id)
   puts self.to_yaml
end

there are only 3 attributes filled. I'm still not getting how does AR
manages to fill each attribute of the object after being saved

Simple. First, all setter methods are called on AR, and I'm guessing 
profesion_related= was called the fourth, so only three attributes are 
filled. After all setter methods are called (which means all attributes 
are populated) the callbacks start, the first being the 
before_validation one, which shows you the entire AR object.

--
Dheeraj Kumar

On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 4:19 PM, Dheeraj Kumar 
<a.dheeraj.kumar@gmail.com>wrote:

> Simple. First, all setter methods are called on AR, and I'm guessing
> profesion_related= was called the fourth, so only three attributes are
> filled. After all setter methods are called (which means all attributes are
> populated) the callbacks start, the first being the  before_validation one,
> which shows you the entire AR object.
>
>
If that's the case... I'm not sure how to proceed then :(
I thought active record would set object attributes first, and then 
virtual
attributes or attr_writer methods
I'm doing this writer method because of this

def profesion_related=(value)
   if value.to_i.to_s == value
      #some code here if value is a number
   else
      #create a new profesion if is an string
   end
   #there's a select input that changes the type of the 
profesion_related
input in my form (between a select input and a text input
end

As far as I tried I can't retrieve profesion_related value in my
before_validation callback cause its a virtual attribute

You should be able to retrieve the value in the callback. If it isn't, 
you're doing something wrong. Make sure you remove your setters. Use 
just the callback. If it doesn't work, gist your code.

--
Dheeraj Kumar