get-active-record-attribute-directly-from-database.md

Get ActiveRecord Attribute Directly From Database

In Rails, an ActiveRecord model will automatically get methods named after each column in the backing database table. This can be called to retrieve those values from the respective columns in the database.

What if you wanted to override and alter one of those values? For example, ensure the email value you're passing around is always fully downcased.

Something like this won't quite work.

def email
  email.downcase
end

Because the method is named email, the email reference inside it will call itself, recursively, until it exceeds the stack.

Instead, you need a way of referencing the email attribute that is stored in the database. attribute_in_database will do the trick.

def email
  attribute_in_database('email').downcase
end

That will retrieve the value from the email column in the database for this record, downcase it, and return it. Anyone calling email won't notice the difference.

h/t Dillon Hafer