Question

I’m adding “:foo” attribute to my user model as:

attr_accessor :foo
attr_accessible :foo

But when I set this attribute from a session controller or any other controller as:

User.foo = "my attributre"

and I get this attribute as:

User.foo

so these are not recognize and gives me an error, which is:

undefined method `foo=' for #<Class:0xb75366fc>

So please help here. I AM USING RAILS 2.3.5

Answer 1

attr_accessor does not create a class method, it creates instance methods. So given your code, it should work to use:

@user = User.new
@user.foo = "bar"

Edit:

However, if you do want to create custom methods, then you could do something like this:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base

  def self.add_accessor(attr)
    define_method(attr) do  
      instance_variable_get("@#{attr}")
    end        

    define_method("#{attr}=") do |val| 
      instance_variable_set("@#{attr}",val)
    end
  end

And then you call it from your Controller:

User.add_accessor "foo"
@user = User.new
@user.foo = "bar"