How to take BigDecimal value in database and make it human readable in view

Question

I want to show prices for products, and read that using Decimal is far more reliable than Integer or using Floats.

I would like to know how to extract the actual number 17.99 from the database when it is stored as <BigDecimal:646c8b8,'0.2E2',9(18) for example. I need to show this value in a form.

So far I have:

f.input :image_prices, as: :check_boxes

Which will output in my view:

#<IMAGEPRICE:0X007F0431BB0850>
#<IMAGEPRICE:0X007F0431BB0710>
#<IMAGEPRICE:0X007F0431BB05D0>
#<IMAGEPRICE:0X007F0431BB0490>

But when saving the correct ids are stored. The model relationships are as follows:

class Image < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :image_options, dependent: :destroy
  has_many :image_prices, through: :image_options
end

class ImageOption < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :image_price
  belongs_to :image
end

class ImagePrice < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :image_options
  has_many :images, through: :image_options
end

I am so stuck at the moment and have tried for a good 3 hours now to no avail.

Answer 1

If the only problem is the image prices showing in the check box list as #<IMAGEPRICE:0X007F0431BB0850>, just define a to_s method in your ImagePrice model and have it return a string representation of the price. For example, if the decimal value of that price is stored in a price attribute, your method would look like

class ImagePrice < ActiveRecord::Base
  # ...
  def to_s
    price.to_s
  end
end