#16 Virtual Attributes
Apr 09, 2007 | 3 minutes | Active Record, Forms
Keep your controllers clean and forms flexible by adding virtual attributes to your model. This very powerful technique allows you to create form fields which may not directly relate to the database.
There is a newer version of this episode, see the revised episode.
users/new.rhtml
<%= f.text_field :full_name %>
models/user.rb
def full_name [first_name, last_name].join(' ') end def full_name=(name) split = name.split(' ', 2) self.first_name = split.first self.last_name = split.last end
