Question

Why does Rails strip leading zeros when trying to save a numeric value in Active Record?

For instance:

   self.dps_billing_id = "0000060010123363"
   self.save! 

actually saves 60010123363.

The column is just a standard string field in a PostgreSQL database:

t.string   "dps_billing_id"

I need the leading zeros to be stored because my credit-card gateway requires them, but I also cannot simply append a few zeros to the result because the amount can change.

How do I stop Rails trimming the zeros?

Answer 1

It may be because your dps_billing_id is of type integer, not string.

In my Rails console:

u = User.first 
u.login_count = '0008'   # but login_count is is defined as type integer
u.save
u.reload
ap u  # :login_count => 8