Safest way to override the update method of a model - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have the following model:
class TwitterEngagement < ApplicationRecord
end
And I would like to override create (and create!), update (and
update!) methods of it so no one can manually entry fake data. I would like the help of someone more experienced with active record and rails so I don't mess anything up. Right now what I have is:
class TwitterEngagement < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :page
def create
super(metrics)
end
def update
super(metrics)
end
private
def metrics
client.get_engagements(page.url)
def client
TwitterClient.new
end
end
Thank you.

Answer 1

TL;DR:
class FacebookEngagement < ApplicationRecord
def create_or_update(*args, &block)
super(metrics)
end
Probably depends on your Rails version, but I traced the ActiveRecord::Persistence sometime before in Rails 5, and found out that both create and update eventually calls create_or_update.
Suggestion:
If ever possible, I'll just do a validation, because it kinda makes more sense because you are validating the inputs, and then probably set an optional readonly?, to prevent saving of records. This will also prevent "silent failing" code / behaviour as doing TL;DR above would not throw an exception / populate the validation errors, if say an unsuspecting developer does: facebook_engagement.update(someattr: 'somevalue') as the arguments are gonna basically be ignored because it's instead calling super(metrics), and would then break the principle of least surprise.
So, I'll probably do something like below:
class FacebookEngagement < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :page
validate :attributes_should_not_be_set_manually
before_save :set_attributes_from_facebook_engagement
# optional
def readonly?
# allows `create`, prevents `update`
persisted?
end
private
def attributes_should_not_be_set_manually
changes.keys.except('page_id').each do |attribute|
errors.add(attribute, 'should not be set manually!')
end
end
def set_attributes_from_facebook_engagement
assign_attributes(metrics)
end
def metrics
# simple memoization to prevent wasteful duplicate requests (or remove if not needed)
#metrics ||= graph.get_object("#{page.url}?fields=engagement")
end
def graph
Koala::Facebook::API.new
end
end