before_create in rails model

Question

I have a rails model User that has name, email and hash fields.

I save data to this by doing:

@u = User.create(:name=>'test', :email=>"[email protected]")
@u.save

How can I incorporate the before_create callback so that before saving the record the hash value gets a hash string by following code:

Digest::SHA1.hexdigest('something secret' + email)

How will my User model look like?

class Employee < ActiveRecord::Base
   before_create :set_hash

   def set_hash 
      //what goes in here?
   end
end

Incidentally, User.create saves the user, so @u.save is unnecessary. If you want to do something between making a new model and saving, use User.new with the same parameters. — Troy
– Troy, Commented Sep 1, 2012 at 0:06

Zachary Wright · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-03 02:11:44Z

9

You can access (and alter) instance variables of your current model using the self keyword.

def set_hash
  self.email = Digest::SHA1.hexdigest('something secret' + self.email)
end

answered Aug 3, 2010 at 2:11

Zachary Wright

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