Best way to automatically format model entries

Rails
1

Using rails 2.1.0 I have a really nasty bit of code in my controller in
my create action that i would like to move to my model:

params[:phrase][“word”] = params[:phrase][“word”].strip.squeeze(" ")
if params[:phrase][“word”] != nil

params[:phrase][“second_word”] =
params[:phrase][“second_word”].strip.squeeze(" ") if
params[:phrase][“second_word”] != nil

params[:phrase][“third_word”] =
params[:phrase][“third_word”].strip.squeeze(" ") if
params[:phrase][“third_word”] != nil

@phrase = Phrase.new(params[:phrase])

What would be the best way to do this, I was thinking of putting it
inside of a :before_save function. But i’ve never written one before and
didn’t know how to get the parameters from my recently saved phrase( how
do I tell it to use the phrase i just created? @phrase.word ? ). What
would you recommend??

2

Richard S. wrote:

params[:phrase][“third_word”] =
would you recommend??
Put something like this in a file in the lib directory:

class ActiveRecord::Base
def self.blacken_attrs(*attrs)
before_validation <<-END
#{attrs.inspect}.each do |attr|
if v = send(attr)
v.strip!
v.squeeze!(’ ')
end
end
END
end
end

Then in the Phrase model write

blacken_attrs :word, :second_word, :third_word

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