What does send() do in Ruby?

Question

Can someone please tell me what

send(\"#{Model.find...}\")

is and does?

Answer 1

One of the most useful feature I think with .send method is that it can dynamically call on method. This can save you a lot of typing. One of the most popular use of .send method is to assign attributes dynamically. For example:

class Car
  attr_accessor :make, :model, :year
end  

To assign attributes regularly one would need to

c = Car.new
c.make="Honda"
c.model="CRV"
c.year="2014"

Or using .send method:

c.send("make=", "Honda")
c.send("model=", "CRV")
c.send("year=","2014")

But it can all be replaced with the following:

Assuming your Rails app needs to assign attributes to your car class from user input, you can do

c = Car.new()
params.each do |key, value|
  c.send("#{key}=", value)
end