Question

I’m serializing a hash that is stored in a settings field in a table, and would like to be able to edit that hash in a form field.

class Template < ActiveRecord::Base
  serialize :settings
end

But I just do <%= f.text_area :settings %> then the text area just shows the serialized data instead of the hash.

How can I get the hash to show in the text area?

Answer 1

Maybe setting up another accessor for your model would work.

class Template < ActiveRecord::Base
  serialize :settings
  attr_accessor :settings_edit

  before_save :handle_settings_edit, :if => lambda {|template| template.settings_edit.present? }

  def settings_edit
    read_attribute(:settings).inspect   # should display your hash like you want
  end

  protected
    def handle_settings_edit
      # You may want to perform eval in your validations instead of in a 
      # before_save callback, so that you can show errors on your form.
      begin
        self.settings = eval(settings_edit)
      rescue SyntaxError => e
        self.settings = settings_edit
      end
    end  
end

Then in your form use <%= f.text_area :settings_edit %>.

I have not tested any of this code, but in theory it should work. Good luck!

WARNING: Using eval like this is very dangerous, in this example a user could delete the entire Template table with one line in the edit box Template.destroy_all. Use a different method to convert the string to a hash if user input is involved.