Can attr_accessible accept objects as opposed to model attributes?

Question

I am trying to make sense of a pre-built app in which:

class Friendship < ActiveRecord::Base attr_accessible :status,:user,:friend belongs_to :user belongs_to :friend, :class_name => "User",:foreign_key => "friend_id" end

I am confused by the attr_accessible part where he has supplied :user and :friend because they are not attributes in the friendship model. Is that just a short way for writing :user_id or friend_id or is he actually supplying the :user object and the :friend object? if they are indeed objects, what does that mean?

aguynamedloren · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-27 10:08:20Z

Instead of assigning a user_id or friend_id, it allows you to assign an user or a friend:

Friendship.create!(:status=>"active", :user=>current_user, :friend=>@friend)

with attr_accessible :user_id,:friend_id, you would do this:

Friendship.create!(:status=>"active", :user_id=>current_user.id, :friend_id=>@friend.id)

In short, both ways effectively save user_id and friend_id. Just different ways to do it.

Note: You should only make accessible the attributes you want to assign, otherwise you're potentially creating mass assignment vulnerabilities.

23tux · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-27 09:57:55Z

It's not a short way of writing user_id. attr_accessible means, that you can mass assign a while user when creating a friendship. This means that with attr_accessible :status,:user,:friend you can do

Friendship.create! user: user1, friend: friend1

without that attr_accessible an error would be thrown, because the mass assignment of user and friend is disabled

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