I load some models using custom SQL #find_by_sql because vanilla Rails relationships were too slow, and the models automatically have the extra attribute fields. Serializing works fine. However, when I deserialize, it complains that there is an unknown attribute. I tried without_protection but it didn't help. How do I deserialize my model and keep the extra attributes?
> Post.new(JSON.parse(json), without_protection: true)
ActiveRecord::UnknownAttributeError: unknown attribute: username
I tried to add attr_accessor fields, and that works for deserializing the models, but then it doesn't work for serializing!
> p.username
=> nil
> p.read_attribute :username
=> "test30"
> p.to_json
=> "{\"id\":129,\"user_id\":32,\"title\":\"The weird...\",\"username\":null}"
Ruby 2.0.0, Rails 4.0.3.
Ok I experimented with attr_writer, attr_reader, virtual fields from methods, and found a workaround but I still don't think this is the best way.
In the model:
attr_accessor :username
# override to_json
def to_json
hash = self.as_json
hash.merge!( {"username" => self.read_attribute(:username),
... other fields ...
} )
hash.to_json
end
However that causes nonsense like
> p = Post.loadFromDBviaFindBySQL.first
> p.username ### WTF?!
=> nil
> p.read_attribute :username
=> "starrychloe"
> json = p.to_json
=> "{\"id\":130,\"username\":\"starrychloe\" ... }"
> p1 = Post.new.from_json json
=> #<Post id: 130, ...>
> p1.username
=> "starrychloe"
> p1.read_attribute :username ### WTF?!
=> nil
I have to use nonsense like this in my views
post.username || post.read_attribute(:username) || post.user.username
I have a controller action where i am assigning a hash to an instance variable. In my rspec test file, i am using assigns to test it the instance variable is assigned to the value i expect. For some reason, assigns gives me a hash with string keys. If i print the instance variable in the controller, i has symbol keys
Please find the code below. It is simplified.
class TestController < ApplicationController
def test
#test_object = {:id => 1, :value => 2, :name => "name"}
end
end
My test file:
describe TestController do
it "should assign test_object" do
get :test
assigns(:test_object).should == {:id => 1, :value => 2, :name => "name"}
end
end
The above test fails with the error message
expected: {:id=>1, :value=>2, :name=>"name"}
got: {"id"=>1, "value"=>2, "name"=>"name"}
Please help me understand why it is doing that.
RSpec borrows assigns from the regular Rails test/unit helpers and it's using with_indifferent_access to return the requested instance variable as in assigns(:my_var).
Hash#with_indifferent_access returns a key-stringified version of the hash (a deep copy), which has the side effect of stringfiying the keys of instance variables that are hashes.
If you try to match the entire hash, it will fail, but it works if you are checking the values of specific keys, whether they're a symbol or a string.
Maybe an example will help clarify:
{:a => {:b => "bravo"}}.with_indifferent_access => {"a"=>{"b"=>"bravo"}}
{:a => {:b => "bravo"}}.with_indifferent_access[:a][:b] => "bravo"
I've got a model, Entity.
class Entity
include Mongoid::Document
field :x
field :y
field :z, type => Hash, :default => {} # new field
end
I added a new field to it, a hash. When I try to use it, I get an error. My code is:
e = Entity.first
if e.z["a"] # if there is a key of this in it?
e.z["a"] = e.z["a"] + 1
else
e.z["a"] = 1
end
But, this error with an undefined method get for hash. If I try to create an initializer for it, to set the values in an existing document, it errors with the same error. What am I doing wrong?
Initializer looks like:
e = Entity.first
e.write_attribute(:z, {})
Thanks
Sorted it.
It seems the answer is to set in Mongoid 1.9.5 the hash to:
field :hash_field, :type => Hash, :default => Hash.new
and it can access and initialize it. Not quite understanding why, but happy to have the answer !
Here's some of my production code (I had to force line breaks):
task = Task.find_or_create_by_username_and_timestamp_and_des \
cription_and_driver_spec_and_driver_spec_origin(username,tim \
estamp,description,driver_spec,driver_spec_origin)
Yes, I'm trying to find or create a unique ActiveRecord::Base object. But in current form it's very ugly. Instead, I'd like to use something like this:
task = Task.SOME_METHOD :username => username, :timestamp => timestamp ...
I know about find_by_something key=>value, but it's not an option here. I need all values to be unique. Is there a method that'll do the same as find_or_create_by, but take a hash as an input? Or something else with similat semantics?
Rails 3.2 first introduced first_or_create to ActiveRecord. Not only does it have the requested functionality, but it also fits in the rest of the ActiveRecord relations:
Task.where(attributes).first_or_create
In Rails 3.0 and 3.1:
Task.where(attributes).first || Task.create(attributes)
In Rails 2.1 - 2.3:
Task.first(:conditions => attributes) || Task.create(attributes)
In the older versions, you could always write a method called find_or_create to encapsulate this if you'd like. Definitely done it myself in the past:
class Task
def self.find_or_create(attributes)
# add one of the implementations above
end
end
I also extend the #wuputah's method to take in an array of hashes, which is very useful when used inside db/seeds.rb
class ActiveRecord::Base
def self.find_or_create(attributes)
if attributes.is_a?(Array)
attributes.each do |attr|
self.find_or_create(attr)
end
else
self.first(:conditions => attributes) || self.create(attributes)
end
end
end
# Example
Country.find_or_create({:name => 'Aland Islands', :iso_code => 'AX'})
# take array of hashes
Country.find_or_create([
{:name => 'Aland Islands', :iso_code => 'AX'},
{:name => 'Albania', :iso_code => 'AL'},
{:name => 'Algeria', :iso_code => 'DZ'}
])
Is there any way of overriding a model's id value on create? Something like:
Post.create(:id => 10, :title => 'Test')
would be ideal, but obviously won't work.
id is just attr_protected, which is why you can't use mass-assignment to set it. However, when setting it manually, it just works:
o = SomeObject.new
o.id = 8888
o.save!
o.reload.id # => 8888
I'm not sure what the original motivation was, but I do this when converting ActiveHash models to ActiveRecord. ActiveHash allows you to use the same belongs_to semantics in ActiveRecord, but instead of having a migration and creating a table, and incurring the overhead of the database on every call, you just store your data in yml files. The foreign keys in the database reference the in-memory ids in the yml.
ActiveHash is great for picklists and small tables that change infrequently and only change by developers. So when going from ActiveHash to ActiveRecord, it's easiest to just keep all of the foreign key references the same.
You could also use something like this:
Post.create({:id => 10, :title => 'Test'}, :without_protection => true)
Although as stated in the docs, this will bypass mass-assignment security.
Try
a_post = Post.new do |p|
p.id = 10
p.title = 'Test'
p.save
end
that should give you what you're looking for.
For Rails 4:
Post.create(:title => 'Test').update_column(:id, 10)
Other Rails 4 answers did not work for me. Many of them appeared to change when checking using the Rails Console, but when I checked the values in MySQL database, they remained unchanged. Other answers only worked sometimes.
For MySQL at least, assigning an id below the auto increment id number does not work unless you use update_column. For example,
p = Post.create(:title => 'Test')
p.id
=> 20 # 20 was the id the auto increment gave it
p2 = Post.create(:id => 40, :title => 'Test')
p2.id
=> 40 # 40 > the next auto increment id (21) so allow it
p3 = Post.create(:id => 10, :title => 'Test')
p3.id
=> 10 # Go check your database, it may say 41.
# Assigning an id to a number below the next auto generated id will not update the db
If you change create to use new + save you will still have this problem. Manually changing the id like p.id = 10 also produces this problem.
In general, I would use update_column to change the id even though it costs an extra database query because it will work all the time. This is an error that might not show up in your development environment, but can quietly corrupt your production database all the while saying it is working.
we can override attributes_protected_by_default
class Example < ActiveRecord::Base
def self.attributes_protected_by_default
# default is ["id", "type"]
["type"]
end
end
e = Example.new(:id => 10000)
Actually, it turns out that doing the following works:
p = Post.new(:id => 10, :title => 'Test')
p.save(false)
As Jeff points out, id behaves as if is attr_protected. To prevent that, you need to override the list of default protected attributes. Be careful doing this anywhere that attribute information can come from the outside. The id field is default protected for a reason.
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
private
def attributes_protected_by_default
[]
end
end
(Tested with ActiveRecord 2.3.5)
Post.create!(:title => "Test") { |t| t.id = 10 }
This doesn't strike me as the sort of thing that you would normally want to do, but it works quite well if you need to populate a table with a fixed set of ids (for example when creating defaults using a rake task) and you want to override auto-incrementing (so that each time you run the task the table is populate with the same ids):
post_types.each_with_index do |post_type|
PostType.create!(:name => post_type) { |t| t.id = i + 1 }
end
Put this create_with_id function at the top of your seeds.rb and then use it to do your object creation where explicit ids are desired.
def create_with_id(clazz, params)
obj = clazz.send(:new, params)
obj.id = params[:id]
obj.save!
obj
end
and use it like this
create_with_id( Foo, {id:1,name:"My Foo",prop:"My other property"})
instead of using
Foo.create({id:1,name:"My Foo",prop:"My other property"})
This case is a similar issue that was necessary overwrite the id with a kind of custom date :
# in app/models/calendar_block_group.rb
class CalendarBlockGroup < ActiveRecord::Base
...
before_validation :parse_id
def parse_id
self.id = self.date.strftime('%d%m%Y')
end
...
end
And then :
CalendarBlockGroup.create!(:date => Date.today)
# => #<CalendarBlockGroup id: 27072014, date: "2014-07-27", created_at: "2014-07-27 20:41:49", updated_at: "2014-07-27 20:41:49">
Callbacks works fine.
Good Luck!.
For Rails 3, the simplest way to do this is to use new with the without_protection refinement, and then save:
Post.new({:id => 10, :title => 'Test'}, :without_protection => true).save
For seed data, it may make sense to bypass validation which you can do like this:
Post.new({:id => 10, :title => 'Test'}, :without_protection => true).save(validate: false)
We've actually added a helper method to ActiveRecord::Base that is declared immediately prior to executing seed files:
class ActiveRecord::Base
def self.seed_create(attributes)
new(attributes, without_protection: true).save(validate: false)
end
end
And now:
Post.seed_create(:id => 10, :title => 'Test')
For Rails 4, you should be using StrongParams instead of protected attributes. If this is the case, you'll simply be able to assign and save without passing any flags to new:
Post.new(id: 10, title: 'Test').save # optionally pass `{validate: false}`
In Rails 4.2.1 with Postgresql 9.5.3, Post.create(:id => 10, :title => 'Test') works as long as there isn't a row with id = 10 already.
you can insert id by sql:
arr = record_line.strip.split(",")
sql = "insert into records(id, created_at, updated_at, count, type_id, cycle, date) values(#{arr[0]},#{arr[1]},#{arr[2]},#{arr[3]},#{arr[4]},#{arr[5]},#{arr[6]})"
ActiveRecord::Base.connection.execute sql