Rails Enum return integer value, not string representation

Have you tried this?

# Rails < 5
post = Post.find(123)
post.read_attribute(:status)

# Rails >= 5
post = Post.find(123)
post.read_attribute_before_type_cast(:status)

Yep. And that's simply how enum field works in Rails. Data is stored as integer, but displayed as string - based on what's defined in enum: https://api.rubyonrails.org/v5.2.3/classes/ActiveRecord/Enum.html

If you really want to get integer try one of those:

1. Remove enum declaration. Data is stored as Integer. Without that line query will return Integer
2. Thats not the most beautiful code but: Post.statuses[post.status] will work

You can give this a try:

Post.select(:id, ..., 'status as int_status')

You could map the column in the SQL statement to another field and read it from there instead, that way Rails passes the value directly as it doesn't know it's an enum (it doesn't know the column at all):

Post.select('id, title, status, status AS status_int').each do |post|
  puts post.status     # 'inactive'
  puts post.status_int # 0
end

If you HAVE to have the same column name, then you're out of luck unless you do a little bit more work:

class Post
  STATUSES = %w(inactive active)
end

Post.all.each do |post|
  index = Post::STATUSES.index(post.status)
  # use 'index' here instead of `post.status`
end

If neither of those are sufficient then this most certainly sounds like the http://xyproblem.info/ ... as these answers should work for 99% of cases. So you should probably explain WHY you cant just use status_int while working with the objects, or why you can't store the int in a variable, or... why you need access to the integer at all, which defeats the purpose of an enum.

I'm not sure this directly applies as I do not know Rails or your exact requirement. But you indicated the desire to "get a collection of records from the DB"; so perhaps it will.
Postgres contains 2 tables in pg_catalog you need to join to get the collection values for a enum: pg_type and pg_enum as follows (where ENUM_NAME is replaced by the appropriate enum type name:

select t.typname,e.enumsortorder, e.enumlabel
  from pg_type t 
  join pg_enum e 
    on (t.oid = e.enumtypid)
 where t.typname = 'ENUM_NAME'    
 order by e.enumsortorder;

One difference I've notice is that in Postgres the associated numeric value is defined as Real, not as Integer. This is due to how the values are actually maintained. Example:

create type t_ord_stat as enum ('Ordered', 'Delivered', 'Billed', 'Complete', 'Canceled');

select e.enumsortorder, e.enumlabel
  from pg_type t 
  join pg_enum e 
    on (t.oid = e.enumtypid)
 where t.typname = 't_ord_stat'    
 order by e.enumsortorder;


alter type t_ord_stat add value 'Suppended: Out-of-Stock' after 'Ordered';
alter type t_ord_stat add value 'Suppended: Credit Check' before 'Suppended: Out-of-Stock' ; 
alter type t_ord_stat add value 'Suppended: Customer Refused Delivery' before 'Billed'; 

select e.enumsortorder, e.enumlabel
  from pg_type t 
  join pg_enum e 
    on (t.oid = e.enumtypid)
 where t.typname = 't_ord_stat'    
 order by e.enumsortorder;

The above gives the actual numeric values underlying the enum string value (as column name indicates it's for sorting purpose). You could get a relative integer value with

select row_number() over() relative_seq, en.enumlabel
  from (select e.enumsortorder, e.enumlabel
  from pg_type t 
  join pg_enum e 
    on (t.oid = e.enumtypid)
 where t.typname = 't_ord_stat'    
 order by e.enumsortorder) en;

I'll leave the actual conversion to Rails to you. Hope it helps.

The above solutions are working. I have tried with raw sql on mysql version 5.7.28. the below query is working with mysql only.

I am still looking query for postgres, I will let you know soon.

 
create table Posts(id integer, title varchar(100), status ENUM ('active', 'inactive') NOT NULL);
insert into Posts(id, title, status) values(1, "Hello", 'inactive')
select title, status+0 from Posts;