In Ruby is “name” a reserved property and if so how do I use :name attributes?

Question

disclaimer and I'm ruby/rails n00b.

I have a simple ActiveRecord class:

class LandingPage < ActiveRecord::Base
attr_accessible :name, :parent_id, :published
end

Now, I haven't worked out the pattern yet, but sometime object.name return the right value, other time object.name or, inside the class, self.name return a value like this:

<LandingPage:0x007fd05c605980>

I'm guessing it's because "name" is like a reserved property? But sometimes it works. Can I use "name" as a property or not?

Answer 1

Name is not a reserved property in Ruby and not in Ruby on Rails. I think you're printing out the return value of the to_s method.

If you're using the poor man's debugger ( Kernel#puts or Kernel#p ) then it will use the to_s method.

Try:

puts landing_page.name

instead of puts landing_page . Or if you're using it in a view, it's the same:

<%= @landing_page.name %>

instead of <%= @landing_page %> .

Answer 2

if you're inside a class method

class Foo
  def self.foo
    puts self.name
  end
end

Foo.foo will return the class name which is Foo. however, given the following

class Foo
  attr_accessor :name

  def self.foo
    puts self.name
  end

  def method1
    puts self.name
  end
end

Foo.new(name: 'my name').method1 will return my name