How to instantiate a model object with attributes?

Question

I would like to instantiate a model object specifying some attributes. For instance

post = Post.new 

should set post.vote_total to 0. I tried to do this in the initialize method but it seems it's not working :

def initialize()
    vote_total=0
end

thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Pass an attributes hash to the object, as in:

post = Post.new(:vote_total => 123, :author => "Jason Bourne", ...)

If you're new to Ruby on Rails, you'll probably want to read the Getting Started Guide, which covers this and many more useful Rails idioms in some detail.

Answer 2

I would use callbacks: Available Callbacks

class Post
   before_save :set_defaults

   def set_defaults
      self.vote_total ||= 0
      #do other stuff
   end
end