Why do I have to add .to_i for Postgresql to know this field is an integer?

Question

The following line works fine in MySQL, but in Postgresql I get a Rails error stating, "can't convert Fixnum to String".

viewable.update_attribute(:total_views, viewable.total_views.to_i + 1)

total_views is an integer field

Shouldn't Rails know to treat total_views as an integer even if I am using Postgresql?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if you would have the same problem with the

update_attributes

method. Since the

update_attribute

method skips Rails validations.Try using the former, and you may get a better picture on what's going on behind the scenes.

Answer 2

The short answer is "yes" Rails should know how to deserialize that column as an integer. What version of Rails and what Postgres adapter are you using?

As a bonus, though, you can do the following to accomplish what you want:

viewable.increment(:total_views)