Syntax for serializing data in rails

Question

According to the Rails docs http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html, I can store an array in a database using the serialize method

 class User < ActiveRecord::Base
      serialize :preferences, Hash
    end

    user = User.create(:preferences => %w( one two three ))

In my dinky application, I seralized the answers column of the Question model, because there will be multiple possible answer choices

class Question < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :question, :link, :answers, :correctanswers

  serialize :answers

end

Trying to seed the database to test it, I did this...

Question.create!( question: "what is R's favorite color", answers: "a" => %w( red green blue ), correctanswer: "blue", link => "http://janesblog.com")

However, the rake db.seed aborted with all sorts of errors suggesting I have the syntax wrong

/Users/mm/Sites/ljk/db/seeds.rb:17: syntax error, unexpected tASSOC, expecting ')'
...avorite color", answers: "a" => %w( red green blue ), correc...
...                               ^
/Users/mm/Sites/ljk/db/seeds.rb:17: syntax error, unexpected ',', expecting $end
...s: "a" => %w( red green blue ), correctanswer: "blue", link ...

Can anyone assist with the correct syntax? Table

class CreateQuestions < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    create_table :questions do |t|

      t.string :question
      t.string :link
      t.text   :answers
      t.string :correctanswer


      t.timestamps
    end
  end
end

Jesse Wolgamott · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-02 22:43:00Z

1

This isn't valid ruby:

answers: "a" => %w( red green blue )

You can do this:

answers: { "a" => %w( red green blue ) }

answered Feb 2, 2013 at 22:43

Jesse Wolgamott

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1 Comment

Leahcim Over a year ago

wait, all I want is an array of colors in the answers column of the database. That "a" probably doesn't/shouldn't be there. Would you mind showing me how to do it that way? Thanks so much.

Adam Tanner · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-02 22:45:50Z

0

I think you want:

Question.create!(
  question: "what is R's favorite color",
  answers: %w( red green blue ),
  correctanswer: "blue",
  link: "http://janesblog.com"
)

answered Feb 2, 2013 at 22:45

Adam Tanner

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2 Comments

Leahcim Over a year ago

that gives me a wrong number of arguments error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)

Leahcim Over a year ago

but the records are in the database nevertheless. Thanks

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