# How to access serialized attributes in my views?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-access-serialized-attributes-in-my-views/187973>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [May 3, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-access-serialized-attributes-in-my-views/187973 "2010-05-03T16:13:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lille](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Lille](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Lille)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-access-serialized-attributes-in-my-views/187973/1 "2010-05-03T16:13:58Z")

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Hi,

I have a serialized attribute in a model:

```
     serialize :some_array, Array

```

(I’ve unit tested this attribute and it works just like an Array  
should.)

Now, how do I supply my some\_array attribute to my views so that I can  
reference elements of my array? The following, for example, won’t  
work:

```
    <%= f.text_field :some_array[0] %>

```

Thanks,

Lille

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lille](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Lille](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Lille)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-access-serialized-attributes-in-my-views/187973/2 "2010-05-04T16:37:50Z")

</div>

serialize saves the data as yaml so you will have to transform it back  
to  
an array. For example I use the to\_json method so I can pass the  
serialized data  
to JavaScript.