# Field name with "-"

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/field-name-with/193742>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 23, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/field-name-with/193742 "2010-08-23T21:11:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![holyboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/4bbf92/32.png) [@holyboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/holyboy)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/field-name-with/193742/1 "2010-08-23T21:11:42Z")

</div>

Hello.

I’m tryes to write webGUI for application’s database. This application  
uses pre-defined field names, for i.e. “session-timers” and I can’t  
change its.

In the users.rb writes:

def index  
@sipusers=User.all  
end

In the index.html.erb:

\<% @users.each do |user| %\>  
\<%=h user[“session-timers”]%\>  
\<%end%\>

It’s work fine but servers output:

Exception occurred during reader method compilation.  
Maybe session-timers is not a valid Ruby identifier?  
/usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/attribute\_methods.rb:1:  
syntax error, unexpected ‘-’, expecting ‘;’ or ‘\n’  
def session-timers; missing\_attribute(‘se…  
^  
/usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/attribute\_methods.rb:1:  
syntax error, unexpected keyword\_end, expecting $end  
…tributes[‘session-timers’]; end  
… ^  
Exception occurred during reader method compilation.  
Maybe session-timers is not a valid Ruby identifier?  
/usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/attribute\_methods.rb:1:  
syntax error, unexpected ‘-’, expecting ‘;’ or ‘\n’  
def session-timers=(new\_value);write\_attr…  
^  
/usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/attribute\_methods.rb:1:  
syntax error, unexpected keyword\_end, expecting $end  
…session-timers’, new\_value);end  
… ^  
Exception occurred during reader method compilation.  
Maybe session-timers is not a valid Ruby identifier?  
/usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/attribute\_methods.rb:1:  
syntax error, unexpected ‘-’, expecting ‘;’ or ‘\n’  
def session-timers?; query\_attribute(‘session-timers’); end  
^  
/usr/lib64/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/attribute\_methods.rb:1:  
syntax error, unexpected keyword\_end, expecting $end  
def session-timers?; query\_attribute(‘session-timers’); end  
^

1. How can I remove this errors? Maybe ActiveRecord can create alias for  
any name?

2. How can I use helpers (.text\_field. .label and etc) for inserting  
data from web page?

Thanks for answers.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![holyboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/4bbf92/32.png) [@holyboy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/holyboy)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/field-name-with/193742/2 "2010-08-23T21:13:08Z")

</div>

> def index  
> @sipusers=User.all  
> end

Must read

@users=User.all