Rails - Jan 2006 - Accessing attributes

I have a name of an attribute and I need to get its value and set a new 
value for it:

x1 = a.foo
a.foo = x2

How do I do that if the name of the attribute ''foo'' is a var?
I thought about doing this:

attribute_name = ''foo''

x1 = a.attributes[attribute_name]
a.attributes[attribute_name] = x2

but this is a bypass and I''m quite sure it would cause problems.
I know I could use ''eval'', but I''d rather use it only
as the last
option.
Is there a bette option?


-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

You could try this:

attr = ''name''

# get the attribute
a.send(attr)

# set the attribute
a.send("#{attr}=", "New Name")


On 1/29/06, r00by n00by <ul1c7x7o60zuqnd@jetable.org>
wrote:
> I have a name of an attribute and I need to get its value and set a new
> value for it:
>
> x1 = a.foo
> a.foo = x2
>
> How do I do that if the name of the attribute ''foo'' is a
var?
> I thought about doing this:
>
> attribute_name = ''foo''
>
> x1 = a.attributes[attribute_name]
> a.attributes[attribute_name] = x2
>
> but this is a bypass and I''m quite sure it would cause problems.
> I know I could use ''eval'', but I''d rather use it
only as the last
> option.
> Is there a bette option?
>
>
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>

--
Cody Fauser
http://www.codyfauser.com