Question

I have the following in the model:

before_save :set_defaults

def set_defaults
  self.num_results ||= 5
end

And I create the object in my controller like this:

Search.create!(  :keyword        => params[:keyword],
                 :ip_address     => request.remote_ip,
                 :referring_page => request.referer )

Even though I haven’t set a value for num_results it’s still getting saved as 0 (which is the default value in the DB schema). The callback function doesn’t get called at all. Any clues?

Update:

I turns out the callback does get called, the problem is in:

self.num_results ||= 5

How would I set the default value in ruby? As this doesn’t seem to work.

Answer 1

num_results is only set to 5, if num_result is nil. In your case it is set to 0 by default, so the assignemt does not do anything. Try to change your assignment to:

self.num_results = 5