ruby on rails - attr_accessor default values

Question

I'm using rails and I want to make it so that attr_accessor :politics is set, by default, to false.

Does anyone know how to do this and is able to explain it in simple terms for me?

Answer 1

Rails has attr_accessor_with_default so you could write

class Like
  attr_accessor_with_default :politics,false
end

i = Like.new
i.politics #=> false

and thats all

UPDATE

attr_accessor_with_default has been deprecated in Rails 3.2.. you could do this instead with pure Ruby

class Like
  attr_writer :politics

  def politics
    @politics || false
  end
end

i = Like.new
i.politics #=> false