Question

I am having compile errors. Could you guys help me get aroudn it. This in my view (the third line with 5prime_primer in particular):

 <tr>
      <td><%=relation.AmpInfoName%></td>
      <td><%=relation.5prime_primer%></td>
      <td><%=relation.3prime_primer%></td>
      <td><%=relation.Selective_bases_1%></td>
      <td><%=relation.Selective_bases_2%></td>
 </tr>

Produces this error:

compile error
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:314: no .<digit> floating literal anymore; put 0 before dot
...tput_buffer.append= (relation.5prime_primer);@output_buffer....
                              ^
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:314: syntax error, unexpected tINTEGER
...put_buffer.append= (relation.5prime_primer);@output_buffer.s...
                              ^
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:315: no .<digit> floating literal anymore; put 0 before dot
...tput_buffer.append= (relation.3prime_primer);@output_buffer....
                              ^
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:315: syntax error, unexpected tINTEGER
...put_buffer.append= (relation.3prime_primer);@output_buffer.s...
                              ^
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:338: no .<digit> floating literal anymore; put 0 before dot
...tput_buffer.append= (relation.5prime_primer);@output_buffer....
                              ^
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:338: syntax error, unexpected tINTEGER
...put_buffer.append= (relation.5prime_primer);@output_buffer.s...
                              ^
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:339: no .<digit> floating literal anymore; put 0 before dot
...tput_buffer.append= (relation.3prime_primer);@output_buffer....
                              ^
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:339: syntax error, unexpected tINTEGER
...put_buffer.append= (relation.3prime_primer);@output_buffer.s...
                              ^
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:354: no .<digit> floating literal anymore; put 0 before dot
...tput_buffer.append= (relation.5prime_primer);@output_buffer....
                              ^
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:354: syntax error, unexpected tINTEGER
...put_buffer.append= (relation.5prime_primer);@output_buffer.s...
                              ^
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:355: no .<digit> floating literal anymore; put 0 before dot
...tput_buffer.append= (relation.3prime_primer);@output_buffer....
                              ^
/usr/home/benjamin/locus/app/views/locus_table/show.html.erb:355: syntax error, unexpected tINTEGER
...put_buffer.append= (relation.3prime_primer);@output_buffer.s...

Could you guys help me figure out how to get around this?

Answer 1

Ruby method names can’t start with numbers. You can however define you own accessors:

class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
  def three_prime_primer
    read_attribute '3_prime_primer'
  end

  def three_prime_primer=(value)
    write_attribute '3_prime_primer', value
  end
end

It wouldn’t be hard to wrap this up in a little method so that you could do

access_attribute '3_prime_primer', :as => 'three_prime_primer'