From: Simone Carletti <weppos@...>
Date: 2007-10-17T01:35:14+09:00
Subject: Prevent attributes vs local variable conflict in activerecord models

Hello, I need a suggestion about a possible best practice.
Consider the following piece of code

class ThumbnailImage < ActiveRecord::Base
# more code

    public
    #
    #
    #
    def request_thumbnail(args = {})
      width   = args[:width]  ||= nil
      height  = args[:height] ||= nil

      # do something
      # with local variables width and height
      # and get job object

      # update image details
      self.width            = job.width
      self.height           = job.height
      self.requested_at     = job.submission_time
      self.webthumb_id      = job.id

      return append_to_fetch_queue()
    end

end

As you can see in the same method I have both a local variable called
width and an activerecord table column called width.
To prevent weird behaviors I used self to identify local object
accessor method but I don't know if this is the best practice to
prevent local variables to conflict with active record attributes.

How do you usually handle this case?