Allows you to set all the attributes for a particular mass-assignment security role by passing in a hash of attributes with keys matching the attribute names (which again matches the column names) and the role name using the :as option.

To bypass mass-assignment security you can use the :without_protection => true option.

  class User < ActiveRecord::Base
    attr_accessible :name
    attr_accessible :name, :is_admin, :as => :admin
  end

  user = User.new
  user.assign_attributes({ :name => 'Josh', :is_admin => true })
  user.name       # => "Josh"
  user.is_admin?  # => false

  user = User.new
  user.assign_attributes({ :name => 'Josh', :is_admin => true }, :as => :admin)
  user.name       # => "Josh"
  user.is_admin?  # => true

  user = User.new
  user.assign_attributes({ :name => 'Josh', :is_admin => true }, :without_protection => true)
  user.name       # => "Josh"
  user.is_admin?  # => true