Specify column for model attributes in Rails3?

Question

Is it possible to specify the column for an attribute? I have something like:

NAME, COUNTRY

The database is quite large and I have over a thousand columns which are capitalized like this. I want to refer to them as so:

attr_accessible :name, :country

Where :name = column NAME. I'd prefer Model.name rather than Model.NAME. It isn't possible to downcase every column name in the structure file.

Answer 1

Here is an idea to do the way you preferred.

Command to generate migration:
(In my example, im applying this on Posts table. Change according to your table name)

rails g migrate RenameColumnsOfPosts

Below is the migration up method. Here taking all the column names and for each one I'm applying rename_column to make it downcase.

class RenameColumnsOfPosts < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def up
     Post.columns.map(&:name).each do |column_name|
        rename_column(:posts, column_name, column_name.downcase)
     end
  end

  def down
     #You can do the opposite operation here. Leaving on you
  end
end

As i didnt run it personally, it might need some changes. So start with it and let me know if facing any problem.

Answer 2

Please write code inside of  model ,
it's just for demostration code,after you get it and update as per logic :

This Code inside of model :
...
attr_accessor :name,:country
before_save :fill_save
..
#assign variable like ...
 def fill_save
       self.NAME=  self.name
       self.COUNTRY=  self.country
  end
....