Rails 3 Observers and passing variables to method

Question

I am integrating the MailChimp API into my app and am using a UserObserver to add the user to a MailChimp list on after_create, but I am having a slight problem with trying to update the user.

I allow the user to update their email address in the system which would be different in the MailChimp list, how could I pass the original email address to the before_update callback?

Answer 1

This is how I ended up doing it.

I set a new attr_accessor in my UserModel

attr_accessor :current_email
attr_accessible :current_email

And then in my Account Update Form, I set a hidden form field with the current_email

<%= f.hidden_field :current_email, :value => current_user.email %>

And the in my UserObserver I can access current_user with the user object being passed back.

  def after_update(user)
    ap user.current_email
  end

Hope this helps someone else