Initializing an ActiveRecord Object without Overriding Initialization

Question

I quickly ran into problems when trying to create an ActiveRecord instance that reconfigured initialization as follows:

class Email < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :lead
  def initialize(email = nil)
    self.email = email unless email.nil?
  end
end

I found this post that found out why this is happening.

In any case, I can avoid creating the creation code as follows:

e = Email.new
e.email = "[e-mail]"

I would like to create and initialize my objects in one line of code.

Is it possible?

Answer 1

e = Email.new(:email => "[e-mail]")

Answer 2

ActiveRecord :: Base # new also accepts convenient block variation

email = Email.new do |e|
  e.email = params[:email] unless params[:email].blank?
end

Suggestions for using the hash version in previous answers is how I usually do it if I don't want to put any logic on the actual destination.