NotRocketSurgery: A More User-friendly date_select() Alternative in Rails

A More User-friendly date_select() Alternative in Rails

ryan — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 01:56:00 -0400

This article has moved over to our sister spin-off blog, RubyJudo, which focuses on more arcane technical topics than NotRocketSurgery.

"A More User-friendly date_select() Alternative in Rails" by walflour

Fri, 18 May 2007 12:50:30 -0400

that got mangled


class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  def birthdate=(new_birthdate)
    [do magic on string new_birthdate]
    [and store in tmp_birthdate]

    write_attribute("birthdate", tmp_birthdate)
  end
end

"A More User-friendly date_select() Alternative in Rails" by walflour

Fri, 18 May 2007 12:46:10 -0400

using rails 1.2.x the @attribute trick doesn’t seem to work any longer. And I think that the better way to do this is to overload the attribute setter like so:

@class User < ActiveRecord::Base end@

def birthdate=(new_birthdate)
end

[do magic on string new_birthdate]
[and store in tmp_birthdate]

write_attribute("birthdate", tmp_birthdate)

"A More User-friendly date_select() Alternative in Rails" by JD

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:36:54 -0500

I can understand why this would be confusing. The date data is parsed by ActiveRecord, so you generally need to do:

@user.update_attributes(params[:user])

But, if you want more control, things get pretty kludgy. You can do this:

user = User.new(params[:user])
@user.update_attribute(:birthday, user.birthday)

There might be a better way, but I don’t know of one.

"A More User-friendly date_select() Alternative in Rails" by xain

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 00:40:53 -0500

I don’t know how to read date_select ’s return. I use @user.update_attribute(:birthday, params[:user][:birthday]) It reports a error.