user.attributes[:email] and user.email

[tom]

Hi

Could somebody explain to me why the following doesn't work:

@user = User.findfirst)
@user.attributes[:email] = params[:user][:email] # this does nothing!!
@user.save

but the following DOES work...

@user = User.findfirst)
@user.email = params[:user][:email] # this works like it should?!
@user.save

I only realized this when the @user.update_attributes(params[:user])
didn't seem to do anything. I was under the impression that the two
snippets above did the same thing?

Does anybody else have this problem with @user.update_attributes??

Thanks in advance

Tom Medhurst

 

[loidee]

the reason is because the @user has a variable defined as email but not
a variable of type array or hash, named attributes. I hope this helps,
if not let me know

 

[tom]

I probably should have mentioned that @user is a class that inherits
from ActiveRecord::Base.
so the attributes hash *should* be wired up the same as the
accessors..?
the @user.update_attributes was a line code-gen'ed by rails so why
wouldn't it work?

 

[Codemonk]

Because attributes creates a copy of the current values stored in a
hash, while when you assign the attribute directly you are changing the
value itself.

@user.attributes # This copies all of the current values of the @user
object into a hash
@user.attribute_name # is the actual value stored on the user object.

@user.attributes does NOT return a pointer to the underlying attributes
hash

 

[loidee]

i figured it was inherited from active record but i think codemonk
explains it quite well. i suppose the fact that there is a method
#update_attributes can be misleading and cause one to expect an actual
attributes hash

 

[tom]

thanks for the info!