CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsruby
user985723
user985723

Reputation: 628

Is it possible to add a variable to an object in rails?

I'm really frustrated with rails because of a ton of little problems like this.

I have a model called timelines. In it is a datetime column but the javascript that I'm passing the data too is expecting a date only. So I want to add a new string to my model object before passing it to the view. This seems impossible.

First I gather the data from the database and put it into an instance variable:

@timeline = Timeline.where(token: params[:token]).first

Then I try to add on to that variable like this:

@timeline.birthday = "1/1/2000"

I get an error that says:

undefined method birthday= for #<Timeline:0x00000105add0d0>

I'm guessing it's saying this because birthday is not a column in my database. I know it's not, and I don't care that it's not in my database. I just want to add onto my variable. Is this possible?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 72

Answers (2)

Sanjay Singh
Sanjay Singh

Reputation: 367

You could convert the original datetime column to date by using: 

your_column_name.strftime("%d/%m/%y")

Upvotes: 0

Sergio Tulentsev
Sergio Tulentsev

Reputation: 230346

You need to add accessor methods to be able to get/set birthday. It won't be persisted, though.

class Timeline
  attr_accessor :birthday
end

Alternative solution

The underlying problem you seem to be having ("javascript expects something else") can be solved in a couple of ways. Presenter pattern, for example. Or use ActiveModel Serializers.

This will allow you to keep the model as is, and, upon rendering, transform data to format expected by client-side.

Upvotes: 2

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