Question

I have a model Messages, for which I have a recipient_list which saves as a string. For whatever reason on save, all of my parameters other than the recipient_list are being saved, with only the recipient_list being left out. I’m stumped as to what the cause for this may be.

Model:

class Message < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :content, :sender_id, :recipient_list
  attr_reader :recipient_list #necessary for jquery-token-input

  belongs_to :sender, class_name: "User"

  validates :content, presence: true
  validates :sender_id, presence: true
  validates :recipient_list, presence: true

  def recipient_list=(recipient) #jquery-token-input
    self.recipient_ids = recipients.split(",")
  end

end

Controller:

def create
  @message = current_user.sent_messages.build(params[:message])
  if @message.save
    flash[:success] = "Message Sent."
    redirect_to '/users/'+current_user.id.to_s+'/messages'
  else
    redirect_to '/users/'+current_user.id.to_s+'/messages'
  end
end

Parameters:

{"utf8"=>"✓",
"authenticity_token"=>"WlStV4ogguSX72vrZp10zJbucS5MTL1pT1DLt06qjcw=",
"message"=>{"recipient_list"=>"1,2",
"content"=>"foobar123",
"sender_id"=>"1"},
"commit"=>"Send"}

Result:

#<Message id: 32, content: "foobar123", sender_id: 1, recipient_list: "", created_at: "2012-08-22 19:38:44", updated_at: "2012-08-22 19:38:44">] 

What might be the problem that is keeping the recipient_list from being saved in this case?

Edit:

Par Ylan’s note I set out to see why it was working despite the difference in variable name.
upon messing with it, I realized that it actually was only working that way if i made recipient -> recipients or the reverse the it would stop working.

Fiddled with it, and based on Nash’s suggestion came up with the following:

def recipient_list=(ids)
 recipient_list = ids.split(",")
 super(recipient_list)
end


#<Message id: 42, content: "foobar123", sender_id: 1, recipient_list: "---\n- '1'\n", created_at: "2012-08-22 21:58:46", updated_at: "2012-08-22 21:58:46">] 

So now the recipient_list is being saved, I just have to figure out how to remove all the unecessary garble and get just the ‘1’ lol. Any further suggestions?

Edit #2:
After adding
serialize :recipient_list, Array

#<Message id: 43, content: "foobar123", sender_id: 1, recipient_list: ["1", "2"], created_at: "2012-08-22 22:10:46", updated_at: "2012-08-22 22:10:46">] 

is the new out put which is what i was going for. We worked together on this one. Thanks you two.

Answer 1

looks like you should call super method in your overriden writer:

def recipient_list=(recipients) #jquery-token-input
  self.recipient_ids = recipients.split(",")
  super(recipients)
end 

or something similar depends on your code.