Rails - Mar 2005 - Adding to model (newbie)

Sorry if this is a really lame question, I''m sure it''s
something fairly
obvious, but I just can''t see it at the moment...

I''m trying to add something simple to the model for a project 
management/todo list/thing. The DB has ''first_name'' and
''last_name'',
and I''d like to have "full_name" available.

So - models/owner.rb:

	def self.full_name
		first_name + '' '' + last_name
	end

Then, in projects/edit.rhtml:

<p><label for="project_owner_id">Owner</label><br
/><select
id="project_owner_id" name="project[owner_id]"><%= 
options_from_collection_for_select @owners, "id",
"full_name",
@project.owner_id %></select>

When I try to access this, I get "NoMethodError" for full_name.

?


-- joshua

On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:56:19 -0600, Joshua Wehner
<joshua-AnsgPkSrJBbs2Lz0fTdYFQ@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> Sorry if this is a really lame question, I''m sure it''s
something fairly
> obvious, but I just can''t see it at the moment...
> 
> I''m trying to add something simple to the model for a project
> management/todo list/thing. The DB has ''first_name'' and
''last_name'',
> and I''d like to have "full_name" available.
> 
> So - models/owner.rb:
> 
>         def self.full_name
>                 first_name + '' '' + last_name
>         end
> 
> Then, in projects/edit.rhtml:
> 
> <p><label
for="project_owner_id">Owner</label><br /><select
> id="project_owner_id"
name="project[owner_id]"><%>
options_from_collection_for_select @owners, "id",
"full_name",
> @project.owner_id %></select>
> 
> When I try to access this, I get "NoMethodError" for full_name.
Change it to def full_name... etc.

By adding the self. in front of full_name, you''re specifying it as a
Class Method (ie: one that you would access like Owner.full_name as
opposed to @owner.full_name).

Pragmatic Ruby has a great section on Ruby classes and objects:
http://www.rubycentral.com/book/tut_classes.html

-- 
rick
http://techno-weenie.net