select() can't do float or anything other than a string?

[rubyonrails-talk]

I have a database field that is a float type. If I do form_for and then
f.select :the_field it will not select the db value unless I make it a
string.
I've had a hard time with this many times. Is there something I'm
missing here? Shouldn't it convert it to a string for me and compare the
results?

More... (http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk/msg/8327ea6adb16d686)