Adding to params hash

Rails
1

my form is passing back turing_confirmation, I have the turing in a
session variable. is this the correct way to get the turing into the
params hash?

params[:accounts][‘turing’] = session[‘turing’]

Model ============================================
validates_confirmation_of :turing

Controller =========================================

def create
debugger
cookies.delete :auth_token
params[:accounts][:turing] = session[‘turing’]
# protects against session fixation attacks, wreaks havoc with
# request forgery protection.
# uncomment at your own risk
# reset_session
@accounts = Accounts.new(params[:accounts])

@accounts.save!
  self.current_accounts = @accounts
  redirect_back_or_default('/')
  flash[:notice] = "Thanks for signing up!"

rescue ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid
render :action => ‘new’
end

2

On 12/27/07, spokra [email protected] wrote:

my form is passing back turing_confirmation, I have the turing in a
session variable. is this the correct way to get the turing into the
params hash?

params[:accounts][‘turing’] = session[‘turing’]

I usually use params.merge.

–
Greg D.
http://destiney.com/

3

could you show the newbie what that would look like? :>

4

On 12/27/07, spokra [email protected] wrote:

could you show the newbie what that would look like? :>

It’s almost what you already had:

params[:account].merge( :turing => session[:turing] )

Helps one get around that false sense of encapsulation in Ruby/Rails.

–
Greg D.
http://destiney.com/

5

Hmmm still now workie… and i can see that session[‘turing’] is
correct! and matches turing_confirmation in the debugger

6

Still not working. and it seems like the params hash cannot be
modified. am i doing it wrong?

class AccountsController < ApplicationController

render new.rhtml

def new

end

def create
debugger
cookies.delete :auth_token

params[:accounts][‘turing’] = session[‘turing’]

params[:accounts].merge 'turing' => session['turing']

puts params[:accounts]
# protects against session fixation attacks, wreaks havoc with
# request forgery protection.
# uncomment at your own risk
# reset_session
@accounts = Accounts.new(params[:accounts])

@accounts.save!
  self.current_accounts = @accounts
  redirect_back_or_default('/')
  flash[:notice] = "Thanks for signing up!"

rescue ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid
render :action => ‘new’
end
def updateturing
render( :partial => “createturing” )
end
end

7

On Dec 28, 2007, at 4:30 PM, Greg D. wrote:

Looks fine to me.

Based on my problem of trying to merge params into another hash, and
the very interesting question raised by Mark W., maybe the
problem is related how you are keying your hash. I was trying to
merge params into a hash keyed with symbols, and it didn’t work. But
when I changed the keys to strings, it did work. So instead of

params[:accounts].merge ‘turing’ => session[‘turing’]

try

params[‘accounts’.merge!({‘turing’ => session[‘turing’})

Also notice the bang on merge! If that doesn’t work, try different
possibilities with strings versus symbols.

Phillip

8

On 12/27/07, spokra [email protected] wrote:

Still not working. and it seems like the params hash cannot be
modified.

I modify it all the time with no problems. shrug

am i doing it wrong?
params[:accounts].merge ‘turing’ => session[‘turing’]

Looks fine to me.

–
Greg D.
http://destiney.com/

9

Merge method will return a new array unless you specify like,

params = params[:accounts].merge( :turing => session[:turing] )

if it is not working still, you will have try with a different variable
name.

10

This is a standard Ruby-ism :string and ‘string’ are not the same
thing. The leading colon makes it into a Symbol, which is converted
into a unique integer behind the scenes. This makes it useful for
hashes, because you can use this value directly for the hash instead
of having to process it into some kind of key the way you would if it
were a String.

I think the convention is that the top-level things in params (e.g.
the model name) use Symbols and the lower-level stuff (as in the form
arguments) are indexed with strings. It doesn’t matter which you use,
as long as you are consistent, for example you could use Symbols in
your session hash.

String has to_sym and Symbol has to_s so you can get from one to the
other easily.

I feel your pain too guys, becuase I went through this one myself a
couple of months ago, but I was parsing XML. This is why XmlSimple has
the KeyToSymbol argument, as I discovered after running in circles for
a while.

HTH

On Dec 28 2007, 10:49 pm, Phillip K. [email protected]

11

I’m not sure your statement about it not mattering which you use is
entirely accurate. I was reading an article about this (can’t
remember where), and strings can have a significantly bigger impact
on memory usage because each one is a completely separate identifier
and therefore has its own memory space. The rule of thumb that I

1 == 1 # true
“some string” == “some string” # false
:some_symbol == :some_symbol # true

this help anyone figure out what a symbol is? :wink:
(tip - think about ‘==’ in terms of where the data is located in the
memory)

12

On Jan 2, 2008, at 3:37 AM, ghoti wrote:

I think the convention is that the top-level things in params (e.g.
the model name) use Symbols and the lower-level stuff (as in the form
arguments) are indexed with strings. It doesn’t matter which you use,
as long as you are consistent, for example you could use Symbols in
your session hash.

I’m not sure your statement about it not mattering which you use is
entirely accurate. I was reading an article about this (can’t
remember where), and strings can have a significantly bigger impact
on memory usage because each one is a completely separate identifier
and therefore has its own memory space. The rule of thumb that I
read (and have decided to adopt) is: if you care about the content of
the thing, use a string; if it’s just an identifier, use a symbol.
I’m going through my entire application changing all strings to
symbols where I can, and it’s turning out to be most places.

As for convention, so far all of the Rails code I’ve looked at makes
almost exclusive use of symbols. In fact, now that I think about it,
I can’t recall seeing the use of a string. But I haven’t scoured
every line of Rails either. The easier use of symbols is why they
created HashWithIndifferentAccess, which is what params is.

Peace,
Phillip

13

On 2 Jan 2008, at 14:09, Shai R. wrote:

Except that

irb(main):001:0> “some string” == “some string”
=> true

The equal? method is probably what you were thinking of (since == on
string is a string comparison not an object id comparison or anything
like that)

Fred