Rails Model: Name -- First, Last

Question

I'm fairly new to rails, working on a Rails 3 app with a Profile model for users.

In the profile Model I'd like to have a "name" entry, and I'd like to be able to access logical variations of it using simple syntax like:

user.profile.name = "John Doe"
user.profile.name.first = "John"
user.profile.name.last = "Doe"

Is this possible, or do I need to stick with "first_name" and "last_name" as my fields in this model?

Answer 1

It's possible, but I wouldn't recommend it.

I would just stick with first_name and last_name if I were you and add a method fullname:

def fullname
  "#{first_name} #{last_name}"
end

Edit:

If you really do want user.profile.name, you could create a Name model like this:

class Name < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :profile

  def to_s
    "#{first} #{last}"
  end
end

This allows you to do:

user.profile.name.to_s  # John Doe
user.profile.name.first # John
user.profile.name.last  # Doe

Answer 2

The other answers are all correct, in so far as they ignore the #composed_of aggregator:

class Name
  attr_reader :first, :last

  def initialize(first_name, last_name)
    @first, @last = first_name, last_name
  end

  def full_name
    [@first, @last].reject(&:blank?).join(" ")
  end

  def to_s
    full_name
  end
end

class Profile < ActiveRecord::Base
  composed_of :name, :mapping => %w(first_name last_name)
end

# Rails console prompt
> profile = Profile.new(:name => Name.new("Francois", "Beausoleil"))
> profile.save!

> profile = Profile.find_by_first_name("Francois")
> profile.name.first
"Francois"

As noted on the #composed_of page, you must assign a new instance of the aggregator: you cannot just replace values within the aggregator. The aggregator class acts as a Value, just like a simple string or number.

I also sent a response yesterday with a very similar answer: How best to associate an Address to multiple models in rails?