# Reserved column names in Rails 3

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reserved-column-names-in-rails-3/194007>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 27, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reserved-column-names-in-rails-3/194007 "2010-08-27T21:21:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![paul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@paul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/paul)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/reserved-column-names-in-rails-3/194007/1 "2010-08-27T21:21:24Z")

</div>

I’m attempting to upgrade one of my sites to Rails 3 and I’m getting  
the following error:

field\_changed? is defined by ActiveRecord

The particular table it is referring to has a column named “field”,  
and I’m assuming that the error message means that I can no longer  
have a column named “field”. First, am I assuming correctly?

Two questions:

1. I just want to upgrade to Rails 3. Is there a way to get around  
this problem. or do I need to migrate that table and my data to use a  
different field name?

2. Is there a list of all the reserved column names so I can avoid  
them in the future?

Paul