Question

I am sure I am just doing this wrong, can someone point me in the right direction?

I need to set the value of effective_date to a modified format date

effective_date is an attribute of Request

class Request < ActiveRecord::Base

  def format_date=(format_date)
    date_a = format_date.split("/")
    month, day, year = date_a
    effective_date = Date.parse("#{year}-#{month}-#{day}")
  end

  def format_date
    effective_date
  end
end

Request.create(format_date: "04/21/2012") is not setting the value to effect_date

Edit: I guess this doesn’t make sense, so I will try and explain it better:

I need to set the value of effective_date (a column in the database) from format_date (not a column in the database). I am using format_date method to convert the date from format_date and store it into effective_date. If this isn’t enough info, let me know. I am not sure what else to add.

Answer 1

If effective_date is the column name in your database, the change is as simple as

def format_date=(format_date)
  date_a = format_date.split("/")
  month, day, year = date_a
  self.effective_date = Date.parse("#{year}-#{month}-#{day}")
end

The only change was effective_date = to self.effective_date =. Without adding self there, there’s no way for the interpreter to know whether you want to set a local variable called effective_date or call the effective_date= method. It assumes the local variable.