Rails - Nov 2005 - Downcasing Legacy Table Column Names

I''m looking for the simplest way to *automatically* downcase the  
attribute names of Models mapped to legacy tables that use upper  
case. eg:

class Workorder < ActiveRecord::Base
   set_table_name "WORKORDER"
end

which has "NAME" as an attribute can use "name" as an
attribute.

currently:
workorder = Workorder.find(1)
workorder.NAME # => "workorder 1 name"

I want:
workorder.name # => "workorder 1 name"


Thanks,
Jamie

You can add a getter/setter for each attribute like:

class Workorder < ActiveRecord::Base
   set_table_name "WORKORDER"

  def name
    self.NAME
  end

  def name=(theName)
    self.NAME = theName
  end

end

I''ve never used this myself so I may have the syntax wrong.  However I 
believe the concept is sound.  Although it is not "automatic" as you 
would like.

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

I ended up overriding method_missing in an abstract Model class.  
Since ActiveRecord::Base''s method_missing is private, I ended up  
copying the whole thing and putting the modified version in my  
subclass. Basically, since I know the column names are upper case, I  
just look to see if method_name.upcase is in the model''s attributes  
hash and if so, upcase! the method_name and pass it along.

I''ve documented this here:
http://blog.dangdev.com/articles/2005/11/30/activerecord-model-legacy- 
table-column-names

Looking forward to comments or a better way to do this. (What I would  
really like is to convert the attributes to lower case as they are set.)

Jamie


On Nov 30, 2005, at 11:42 AM, Jamie Orchard-Hays wrote:
> I''m looking for the simplest way to *automatically* downcase the  
> attribute names of Models mapped to legacy tables that use upper  
> case. eg:
>
> class Workorder < ActiveRecord::Base
>   set_table_name "WORKORDER"
> end
>
> which has "NAME" as an attribute can use "name" as an
attribute.
>
> currently:
> workorder = Workorder.find(1)
> workorder.NAME # => "workorder 1 name"
>
> I want:
> workorder.name # => "workorder 1 name"
>
>
> Thanks,
> Jamie
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

Yeah, but I didn''t want to hand code all those accessors--was looking  
for an automatic way to deal with the problem.

Thanks,

Jamie


On Dec 1, 2005, at 9:24 AM, Rick wrote:
> You can add a getter/setter for each attribute like:
>
> class Workorder < ActiveRecord::Base
>    set_table_name "WORKORDER"
>
>   def name
>     self.NAME
>   end
>
>   def name=(theName)
>     self.NAME = theName
>   end
>
> end
>
> I''ve never used this myself so I may have the syntax wrong. 
However I
> believe the concept is sound.  Although it is not "automatic" as
you
> would like.
>
> -- 
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails