Rails - Jul 2006 - Understanding date_select naming conventions

I am using the date_select helper to generate date select elements in a 
form.

I notice that the generated HTML shows that these selects have the 
following names:

Month: current_job[StartDate(2i)]
Day:   current_job[StartDate(3i)]
Year:  current_job[StartDate(1i)]

I''m assuming that the Xi identifiers somehow specify the appropriate 
date part from a date or time value.

Can anyone shed some light on how this works?  Where can I get definite 
info. on it?

Also, I am using select_hour, select_minute, and select_second to handle 
the time portion of another field.  Do I need to use a similar naming 
convention so that the correct time components will be set upon form 
submission?

Thanks,
Wes

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

Wes Gamble wrote:
> I am using the date_select helper to generate date select elements in a 
> form.
> 
> I notice that the generated HTML shows that these selects have the 
> following names:
> 
> Month: current_job[StartDate(2i)]
> Day:   current_job[StartDate(3i)]
> Year:  current_job[StartDate(1i)]
> 
> I''m assuming that the Xi identifiers somehow specify the
appropriate
> date part from a date or time value.
> 
I would love to see more about it as well. I''ve found that the
attribute
will come back as "attribute(1i)" through "attribute(5i)"
for
select_datetime.

I think the ActiveRecord automatically converts these into a Date or 
Time object automatically, but I''m using a proxy object, so I have to 
take the component parts and create a date from them.

I was expecting something like this_

time = Time.local({:year => params[:record]["attribute(1i)"],
:month =>
params[:record]["attribute(2i)"], ...})

but that is not shown in the documentation. All I have found is 
Time.local() taking an array and parsing it topographicaly (e.g. first 
item is year by position). And that does not seem to work when I pass 
the proxy class'' attribute mutator an array as a parameter.

I''m Old School (Object Pascal and Java). I understand that one cannot 
overload methods with duck typing, but it seems psychotic that I cannot 
tell if the argument is an array, a hash, or a scalar value (like a 
Time). I cannot beleave that one is supposed to use exception catching 
to deal with different types.

Cheers

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

The number inside the parenthesis means the parameter position and the the i
means to convert the value into an integer. The convention is used by active
record to convert multipart fields into one value. For example:

current_job[StartDate(2i)]
current_job[StartDate(3i)]
current_job[StartDate(1i)]

Active record will convert the value of current_job[StartDate(1i)] into an
integer (i) and use it as the first parameter for the mktime function (1). It
will also convert the value of current_job[StartDate(2i)] into an integer (i)
and use it as the second parameter for the mktime function (2). The same is true
for current_job[StartDate(3i)]. You canfind some info in the API docs, looking
for something like multi part field or values. I had to dig into
ActiveRecord''s
source to see the magic.

Hope this clears up your question,
juantar
http://tarpri.com

On 7/6/06, juantar <jptarqu@yahoo.com> wrote:
> The number inside the parenthesis means the parameter position and the the
i
> means to convert the value into an integer. The convention is used by
active
> record to convert multipart fields into one value. For example:
>
> current_job[StartDate(2i)]
> current_job[StartDate(3i)]
> current_job[StartDate(1i)]
>
> Active record will convert the value of current_job[StartDate(1i)] into an
> integer (i) and use it as the first parameter for the mktime function (1).
It
> will also convert the value of current_job[StartDate(2i)] into an integer
(i)
> and use it as the second parameter for the mktime function (2). The same is
true
> for current_job[StartDate(3i)]. You canfind some info in the API docs,
looking
> for something like multi part field or values. I had to dig into
ActiveRecord''s
> source to see the magic.
I can''t seem to get any magic to work with date_select on the receiving
end.

The parameters that arrive to my controller are

params=>{"commit"=>"Save",
"tick"=>{"climb_id"=>"1",
"send_date(1i)"=>"2002",
"send_date(2i)"=>"8",
"send_date(3i)"=>"14"}}

In my controller that receives these params I have

tick = Tick.find_by_climb_id(params[:tick][:climb_id])
tick.update_attributes(:send_date=>params[:tick][:send_date])

but this results in null in the database because there isn''t a
params[:tick][:send_date]

Do I have to manually reassemble the date from the params? I''ve seen
that people do this but it seems like the (1i) etc should make it
happen automatically.

Is there a magic helper that validates the date as an actual real date?

Thanks,
Peter