Decimals and commas when entering a number into a Ruby on Rails form

Question

What\'s the best Ruby/Rails way to allow users to use decimals or commas when entering a number into a form? In other words, I would like the user be able to enter 2,000.99

Answer 1

Here's some code I copied from Greg Brown (author of Ruby Best Practices) a few years back. In your model, you identify which items are "humanized".

class LineItem < ActiveRecord::Base
  humanized_integer_accessor :quantity
  humanized_money_accessor :price
end

In your view templates, you need to reference the humanized fields:

= form_for @line_item do |f|
  Price:
  = f.text_field :price_humanized

This is driven by the following:

class ActiveRecord::Base
  def self.humanized_integer_accessor(*fields)
    fields.each do |f|
      define_method("#{f}_humanized") do
        val = read_attribute(f)
        val ? val.to_i.with_commas : nil
      end
      define_method("#{f}_humanized=") do |e|
        write_attribute(f,e.to_s.delete(","))
      end
    end
  end

  def self.humanized_float_accessor(*fields)
    fields.each do |f|
      define_method("#{f}_humanized") do
        val = read_attribute(f)
        val ? val.to_f.with_commas : nil
      end
      define_method("#{f}_humanized=") do |e|
        write_attribute(f,e.to_s.delete(","))
      end
    end
  end

  def self.humanized_money_accessor(*fields)
    fields.each do |f|
      define_method("#{f}_humanized") do
        val = read_attribute(f)
        val ? ("$" + val.to_f.with_commas) : nil
      end
      define_method("#{f}_humanized=") do |e|
        write_attribute(f,e.to_s.delete(",$"))
      end
    end
  end
end