> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://ploegert.gitbook.io/til/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://ploegert.gitbook.io/til/programmy/rails/attribute-getter-without-the-recursion.md).

# Attribute Getter without the Recursion

You may find yourself adding a custom *getter* method for one of the attributes in a Rails model. It might look something like this:

```ruby
def name
  name || account.name
end
```

This method will fall on its face as it quickly expands the stack recursively calling itself. Instead, you can tell `ActiveRecord` that you want the value of that attribute without invoking the getter Instead, we want to get the value of the attribute without invoking the model's getter. `ActiveRecord` allows us to do this with the [`read_attribute`](http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/AttributeMethods/Read.html#method-i-read_attribute) method. Check it out:

```ruby
def name
  read_attribute(:name) || account.name
end
```

[source](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21835116/overwrite-getter-activerecord-model-rails)