Rails enum symbol vs string

Question

I have just started working on a new rails project, and I have noticed that the previous developer has used strings instead of symbols as keys for the enum. The example is as follows:

enum event_type: {
  'Tournament'    => 1,
  'Practice Game' => 2
}

I am just curious about the possible advantages/disadvantages of using strings instead of symbols.

As @AndreyDeineko pointed out in his answer it doesn’t matter in this case. Maybe you want to read [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16621073/when-to-use-symbols-instead-of-strings-in-ruby) for a better understanding of strings and symbols. — Ray Wojciechowski, Apr 12 '17 at 09:19

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 12 '17 at 05:40

It does not matter, since Enum is an integer in database, and

The mappings are exposed through a class method with the pluralized attribute name, which return the mapping in a HashWithIndifferentAccess

so whether you used strings or symbols both of the following will work:

MyModel.event_types[:Tournament]
MyModel.event_types['Tournament']

Rails enum symbol vs string

1 Answers1