Technical
How To Check If Column Is Present

In the view you can check if value is not nil but what would be the easiest way to check if column is present?

I did the following.

test

def test_has_column?
  person = Person.find(:first)
  assert person.has_column? "name" 
  assert !person.has_column? "some_uknown_column_name" 
end

Code
added to app/controllers/application.rb

module ActiveRecord
  class Base
    def has_column?(column_name)
      attributes.has_key? column_name
    end
  end
end