Consider the following User model

schema:

create_table "users", id: :serial, force: :cascade do |t|
    t.string "fname"
    t.string "lname"
end

Model:

class User < ApplicationRecord
  attr_accessor :email # no column in database
end

Controller:

def user_params
  params.require(:user).permit(:fname, :lname, :email)
end

I'm writing an API to which I'm sending a POST request to the users endpoint with the following keys/values:

{
    "fname": "John",
    "lname": "Doe",
    "email": "email@email.com",
}

I would expect params[:user] to include the key :email as even though it is not a database column, it is defined as an attribute via the attr_accessor in the model.

However, the :email key is not nested within params[:user], and has to be accessed at the params level params[:email].

# POST /users { "fname": "John", "lname": "Doe", "email": "email@email.com" }
Processing by UsersController#create as JSON

Parameters: {"user"=>{"fname"=>John, "lname"=>"Doe"}, "email"=>"email@email.com"}

I believe ActionController#params_wrapper has something to do with this, but I don't understand the code enough to make it wrap attr_accessor defined attributes inside the user hash.

I need the :email key nested within params[:user]. Is there a way around this?