Exposing serialised fields – meta programming way

class SomeClass < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :user

  def self.serialize(attr_name, class_name = Object, exposed_fields = [])
    super(attr_name, class_name)
    serialized_attr_accessor attr_name, exposed_fields
  end

  def self.serialized_attr_accessor(attr_name, *args)
    args.first.each do |method_name|
      eval "
        def #{method_name}
          (self[:#{attr_name}] || {})[:#{method_name}]
        end

        def #{method_name}=(value)
          self[:#{attr_name}] ||= {}
          self[:#{attr_name}][:#{method_name}] = value
        end
        attr_accessible :#{method_name}
      "
    end
  end

  serialize :other_data, Hash, 
    %w(some other values you want to store in serialized field)
end