How to add to a serialized array

Question

I have an existing user which has a serialized field and I want to be able to add recent messages to the array / serialized field.

class User < ActiveReco         


        

Answer 1

You can pass a class to serialize:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  serialize :recent_messages, Array
end

The above ensures that recent_messages is an Array:

User.new
#=> #

Note that you might have to convert existing fields if the types don't match.