I have a Person model. When a new Person is created, I want to set a random\_variable in the controller and pass it as part of the @person object. I have tried

Model

```
attr_accessor :random_variable

```

Controller:

```
def create
  @person = Person.new(params[:person])
  @person.random_variable = 'A Random string'  
  @person.save          
end

```

Unfortunately, if I try and access self.random\_variable in the model, this doesn't work (I get nil).

Can someone explain why this doesn't work, and how to go about doing it? (and yes, I know this doesn't really hold with MVC convention, but the only other way of doing what I need is a very heavy non-dry controller)