Returns the value of the attribute identified by attr_name after it has been type cast. (For information about specific type casting behavior, see the types under ActiveModel::Type.)

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :organization
end

person = Person.new(name: "Francesco", date_of_birth: "2004-12-12")
person[:name]            # => "Francesco"
person[:date_of_birth]   # => Date.new(2004, 12, 12)
person[:organization_id] # => nil

Raises ActiveModel::MissingAttributeError if the attribute is missing. Note, however, that the id attribute will never be considered missing.

person = Person.select(:name).first
person[:name]            # => "Francesco"
person[:date_of_birth]   # => ActiveModel::MissingAttributeError: missing attribute 'date_of_birth' for Person
person[:organization_id] # => ActiveModel::MissingAttributeError: missing attribute 'organization_id' for Person
person[:id]              # => nil

Updates the attribute identified by attr_name using the specified value. The attribute value will be type cast upon being read.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
end

person = Person.new
person[:date_of_birth] = "2004-12-12"
person[:date_of_birth] # => Date.new(2004, 12, 12)

Returns the name of all database fields which have been read from this model. This can be useful in development mode to determine which fields need to be selected. For performance critical pages, selecting only the required fields can be an easy performance win (assuming you aren’t using all of the fields on the model).

For example:

class PostsController < ActionController::Base
  after_action :print_accessed_fields, only: :index

  def index
    @posts = Post.all
  end

  private
    def print_accessed_fields
      p @posts.first.accessed_fields
    end
end

Which allows you to quickly change your code to:

class PostsController < ActionController::Base
  def index
    @posts = Post.select(:id, :title, :author_id, :updated_at)
  end
end

Returns an #inspect-like string for the value of the attribute attr_name. String attributes are truncated up to 50 characters. Other attributes return the value of #inspect without modification.

person = Person.create!(name: 'David Heinemeier Hansson ' * 3)

person.attribute_for_inspect(:name)
# => "\"David Heinemeier Hansson David Heinemeier Hansson ...\""

person.attribute_for_inspect(:created_at)
# => "\"2012-10-22 00:15:07.000000000 +0000\""

person.attribute_for_inspect(:tag_ids)
# => "[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]"

Returns an array of names for the attributes available on this object.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
end

person = Person.new
person.attribute_names
# => ["id", "created_at", "updated_at", "name", "age"]

Returns true if the specified attribute has been set by the user or by a database load and is neither nil nor empty? (the latter only applies to objects that respond to empty?, most notably Strings). Otherwise, false. Note that it always returns true with boolean attributes.

class Task < ActiveRecord::Base
end

task = Task.new(title: '', is_done: false)
task.attribute_present?(:title)   # => false
task.attribute_present?(:is_done) # => true
task.title = 'Buy milk'
task.is_done = true
task.attribute_present?(:title)   # => true
task.attribute_present?(:is_done) # => true

Returns a hash of all the attributes with their names as keys and the values of the attributes as values.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
end

person = Person.create(name: 'Francesco', age: 22)
person.attributes
# => {"id"=>3, "created_at"=>Sun, 21 Oct 2012 04:53:04, "updated_at"=>Sun, 21 Oct 2012 04:53:04, "name"=>"Francesco", "age"=>22}

Returns true if the given attribute is in the attributes hash, otherwise false.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
  alias_attribute :new_name, :name
end

person = Person.new
person.has_attribute?(:name)     # => true
person.has_attribute?(:new_name) # => true
person.has_attribute?('age')     # => true
person.has_attribute?(:nothing)  # => false

A Person object with a name attribute can ask person.respond_to?(:name), person.respond_to?(:name=), and person.respond_to?(:name?) which will all return true. It also defines the attribute methods if they have not been generated.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
end

person = Person.new
person.respond_to?(:name)    # => true
person.respond_to?(:name=)   # => true
person.respond_to?(:name?)   # => true
person.respond_to?('age')    # => true
person.respond_to?('age=')   # => true
person.respond_to?('age?')   # => true
person.respond_to?(:nothing) # => false