CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsarrayspostgresqlserialization
linkyndy
linkyndy

Reputation: 17900

Rails serialize symbols array attribute

I have an array field in one of my models, with elements being symbols. For example, here is how I assign values to this field:

Model.field = [:a, :b, :c]

I use Postgres so I store these arrays in an array column. The problem is that Rails automatically serializes the symbols from the given array to strings when saving them to the database, but doesn't convert them back to symbols when objects are fetched from the database. How can I tell my model to automatically convert array values to symbols?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1217

Answers (1)

house9
house9

Reputation: 20614

You could try overriding the attribute reader method and doing the datatype conversion there

class Model < ActiveRecord::Base
  # ...

  def field
    self[:field].map(&:to_sym)
  end
end

Upvotes: 1

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