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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-09T17:38:14+00:00

I’ve been writing Rails for a few years, and the difference between attr_accessible :person

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I’ve been writing Rails for a few years, and the difference between attr_accessible :person and attr_accessible :person_id has really bugged me.

attr_accessible :person makes it irritating to deal form data, particularly with select helpers, which require access to f.select :person_id...

attr_accessible :person_id: makes it verboser to set AR finder results, like User.person_id = Person.create!(name: "Hugh").id

I don’t mind either too much, but using both seems like it should be unnecessary. I also haven’t ever really seen a preference in other people’s code. Is there a convention here I should follow?

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  1. Editorial Team

    As far as I know It’s best practice to use attr_accessible :person_id. The model object will convert to id automatically, so you should be able to write soething like: User.first.person_id = Person.create!(name: "Hugh") or even shorter: User.first.person.create!(name: "Hugh")

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