Adding fields and values to your Devise MODEL in Rails 4+

1 - Readme.md

If you experimented with Devise in Rails 4 recently and tried to edit or create accounts in the devise gem with extra values like name, phone and avatar you must have seen that Rails 4 silently ignores the extra fields you inserted in your forms. When you tried atrr_accesible in your model your rails app wouldn't even start or would leave you with screens of errors.

This is because Rails 4 uses a new kind of attr_accesible where you have to define all accessible or now called "required" values for each method they should be accessible from.

when defining for example your edit field you should add an extra line"

params.require(:model).permit(:extra_field1, :extra_field2)

##In Devise

If you have however tried editing your Devise controller, you must have noticed that Devise doesn't use only edit, but tons of extra methods in all kinds of directions... which one to edit huh?

In this small example we are going to edit our default application_controller.rb located in app/controllers

Tell your application controller to overide certain devise params and add more content to them. Type the following before in a new line below the protect_from_forgery line:

before_filter :configure_devise_params, if: :devise_controller?

In an new line below this filter we are going to tell the application_controller that all next fields are private (To make it a bit saver). add the next line:

private

Now we are going to make overrides to 2 methods. The :sign_u method and the :account_update method. The only diffrence between those methods is :current_password. since you have to fill in your current password when updating your account. In my case I want to add :name, :avatar, :remove_avatar and avatar_cache. Please notice we are overriding a method that had permits already, hence permitting the basic values :email, :password, :password_confirmation and :current_password. Type the two overides below below:

def configure_devise_params
  devise_parameter_sanitizer.for(:sign_up) do |u|
    u.permit(:name, :avatar, :avatar_cache, :email, :password, :password_confirmation)
  end
  devise_parameter_sanitizer.for(:account_update) do |u|
    u.permit(:name, :avatar,  :remove_avatar, :avatar_cache, :email, :password, :password_confirmation, :current_password)
  end
end

In the file below you can see the end result.

2 - application_controller.rb

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  # Prevent CSRF attacks by raising an exception.
  # For APIs, you may want to use :null_session instead.
  protect_from_forgery with: :exception

  before_filter :configure_devise_params, if: :devise_controller?
  
  private
    def configure_devise_params
      devise_parameter_sanitizer.for(:sign_up) do |u|
        u.permit(:name, :avatar, :avatar_cache, :email, :password, :password_confirmation)
      end
      devise_parameter_sanitizer.for(:account_update) do |u|
        u.permit(:name, :avatar,  :remove_avatar, :avatar_cache, :email, :password, :password_confirmation, :current_password)
      end
    end

end