Rails 3 - Run an Update in a Model

I have an employee table with particular columns:

employee_nbr, first_name, last_name and employee_nbr_name

I need to somehow populate the employee_nbr_name column with the data from the other columns like this:

1234 - First Last (employee_nbr space dash first_name space last_name)

First question is where should I do this? In the mo开发者_JS百科del or controller when the employee is being created?

Secondly, can anyone help with how to format it?

Thanks!

---

like jklina says, put it in your model. but use interpolation so even with nil values your app won't crash:

def generate_employee_nbr_name
  self.employee_nbr_name = "#{employee_nbr} - #{first_name} #{last_name}"
end

---

In your model you can do the following:

class Employee < ActiveRecord::Base
  before_save :generate_employee_nbr_name

  private

  def generate_employee_nbr_name
    self.employee_nbr_name = "#{employee_nbr} - #{first_name} #{last_name}"
  end
end

That will string them together and set the column so when the record saves it will save the string as well.