Simple formatting of an ActiveRecord Attribute

Rails
1

I’m retrieving information from the database through an ActiveRecord
model and displaying it in my view (basic stuff). I just want to simply
be able to format some of my attributes that I’m displaying in my view.
For example, my postal code is stored as a 9 digit number in the
database. How can I format the output so that it will add a dash in the
center, displaying “12345-6789”. I also want to be able to format my
phone number output. I know how I’d do this in PERL, but I can’t seem to
figure this out in RoR. Thanks in advance for any help!

2

John wrote:

I’m retrieving information from the database through an ActiveRecord
model and displaying it in my view (basic stuff). I just want to simply
be able to format some of my attributes that I’m displaying in my view.
For example, my postal code is stored as a 9 digit number in the
database. How can I format the output so that it will add a dash in the
center, displaying “12345-6789”. I also want to be able to format my
phone number output. I know how I’d do this in PERL, but I can’t seem to
figure this out in RoR. Thanks in advance for any help!

You could have helper methods defined that do this conversion for you.
Something like

def format_zipcode(code)
if code.length > 5
code.insert(5, “-”)
end
end

and call the helper methods from the view. I was searching for a
“after_” method in the activerecord that I could have in my model so
that when the field is retrieved, it would be modified as per my needs
but couldnt find one.