# Strange behavior when override a default attribute, maybe a bug?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-behavior-when-override-a-default-attribute-maybe-a-bug/155886>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [December 17, 2008, 10:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-behavior-when-override-a-default-attribute-maybe-a-bug/155886 "2008-12-17T22:15:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![liberte](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/9e8a1a/32.png) [@liberte](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/liberte)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2008, 10:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-behavior-when-override-a-default-attribute-maybe-a-bug/155886/1 "2008-12-17T22:15:21Z")

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Hello, I have a strange behavior and don’t know why.

If I override attributes from AcitveRecord object like below:

def end\_date=(date)  
date = date.to\_date unless date.blank?  
write\_attribute(:end\_date,date)  
end

def end\_date  
date = read\_attribute(:end\_date)  
I18n.localize(date) if date.present?  
end

Everything will work fine but when I try call text\_field in a form\_for  
block I get the database value and ignore end\_date getter.

\<%= f.text\_field :end\_date, :class=\>“date”, :size=\>“10” %\>

The text\_field will be filled with 2008-12-10 (mysql date) instead of  
10/12/2008 ( I18n localized)

Anyone know why we get this behavior?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![liberte](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/9e8a1a/32.png) [@liberte](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/liberte)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2008, 2:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-behavior-when-override-a-default-attribute-maybe-a-bug/155886/2 "2008-12-18T02:15:02Z")

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Some idea? I still don’t understand why text\_field load values from  
database instead of model.rb

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![liberte](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/9e8a1a/32.png) [@liberte](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/liberte)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2008, 2:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-behavior-when-override-a-default-attribute-maybe-a-bug/155886/3 "2008-12-18T02:51:18Z")

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Sorry for duplicated threads, it was a mistake, I opened new one here  
[http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk/browse\_thread/thread/7e82b30f719ad1ac](http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk/browse_thread/thread/7e82b30f719ad1ac)  
…