Question

I’d like to initiate a new record with some default values.

@test = "#{@fb_page['id']}, slug: #{slug}, title: #{@fb_page['name']}"
@frame = Frame.new(:fb_page_id => @fb_page['id'].to_i, :slug => slug, :title => @fb_page['name'], :theme => 'default')

@test shows all I want:

<the-page-id>, slug: mrs-test, title: Mrs. Test 

But a few of the default values for the @frame are nil!

# @frame.inspect: 
#<Frame id: nil, slug: nil, title: "Mrs. Test", theme: "default", fb_page_id: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>  

Could anyone please explain me why it doesn’t take some of the variables? The string “default” gets through as well as@fb_page['name'].

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

This typically happens when you don’t list those attributes under the attr_accessible section of the model.

attr_accessible :fb_page_id, :slug, :title, :theme

Rails has mass-assignment protection to prevent malicious users from mass-assigning certain model attributes. So when you pass in attributes to a Model.new() method, the only attributes that will persist will be ones that are listed in attr_accessible (unless you haven’t protected your models yet).

If you want to leave those attributes protected (as they currently are), you need to set those attributes using dot notation:

@frame = Frame.new
@frame.fb_page_id = @fb_page['id'].to_i
@frame.slug = slug
@frame.title = @fb_page['name']
@frame.theme = 'default'