Simplifying timestamp toggles in Rails

This article was originally published on Rails Designer's Build a SaaS Blog I often use timestamps, like completed_at as a boolean flag. It offers just a bit more (meta) data than a real boolean. But of course on the UI you want to show a checkbox that a user can toggle instead of a datetime field. I have done this often enough, that I created a simple concern that I use throughout my apps. Given above completed_at example, it gives you an API like: @resource . completed? @resource . complete! @resource . complete = So in your form, you can simply use form.check_box :completed and you're off. The concern is simple enough: # lib/boolean_attributes.rb module BooleanAttribute extend ActiveSupport :: Concern class_methods do def boolean_attribute ( * fields ) fields . each do | field | column = :" #{ field } _at" define_method ( field ) { public_send ( column ). present? } define_method ( " #{ field } ?" ) { public_send ( column ). present? } define_method ( " #{ field } =" ) do | value |