how to define extra method for rails form text_field

Question

After removing dimensions from my table, my scaffolded view hit this error: undefined method 'dimensions' for this code:

<div class="field">
    <%= f.label :dimensions %><br>
    <%= f.text_field :dimensions %>
  </div>

I want to keep this dimention field in the form and in the controller I want to split this string into length, width, height.

Now what should I do?

Answer 1

Try this into your model to keep this attribute dimensions as virtual attributes

 Class ModelName < ActiveRecord::Base
   attr_accessor :dimensions
 end

Answer 2

You need a virtual attribute, which is done using attr_accessor

attr_accessor is a ruby method for creating getter and setter methods. This basically means you're able to create a series of virtual attributes for use in your models

Class Table < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessor :dimensions
end

Answer 3

If you only want to use it in the controller then instead of using f.text_field :dimensions , use text_field_tag :dimensions . You can access this attribute in the action directly by using params[:dimensions]