I'm in the process of updating a website I made almost 2 years ago. It was my first real website and I made some mistakes (some more serious that others).
What apparently is one of my biggest is making database calls from the view.
I'm pretty damn sure there is a better way to do this:
Use Case:
Someone fills out a form for a new subject, populating the Subject table, and they have been marked "enrolled", Subject.enrolled = 1
Based on that, I now need to create a record in 5 other tables (such as Baseline)
Downhill from here, here is my method
Determine if the record exist based on subject_id from Subject (sub)
<$ if Baseline.where(subject_id: sub.subject_id).first != nil $>
If it does not exist, create the record, (otherwise display the link)
<%= Baseline.create(subject_id: sub.subject_id) %>
This all happens in the view, and creates a front-end table with links to each record in the process. So I'm creating records based on for-loop logic...
Question:
So I'm looking for direction. I don't want to guess how to do this - I'm pretty sure the model/controller should do this - I want to learn how to do it correctly. How do I create records automatically, based on a value in a table?
Thank you for your time.
Not quite sure how your domain and code looks like, but to answer this question: 'How do I create records automatically, based on a value in a table?', it seems that you could use ActiveRecord callbacks, like this:
class Subject < ActiveRecord::Base
after_commit :create_baseline_if_enrolled, on: [:create, :update]
private
def create_baseline_if_enrolled
return unless enrolled?
# enrolled? == true, you may create these models here
end
end
To answer your question:
It depends :) This is just one possible solution. Another one would be to put such a custom logic in your SubjectsController and call it directly from the #create, #update methods. Both approaches have pros and cons. For example, abusing callbacks (anywhere) makes code less readable and harder to debug. On the other hand, putting such logic in controllers puts a burden on you that you have to remember about calling it if you happen to be editing subjects in other places (but is more explicit). Whichever way you choose, remember not to make your classes too fat, for example try to use service object pattern to separate such custom logic as soon as you feel like it is getting out of hand. :) And don't forget about tests - when things go wrong, tests make refactoring easier.
Related
In my Ruby on Rails project, I have a mailer that basically prepares a daily digest of things that happened in the system for a given user. In the mailer controller, I am gathering all the relevant records from the various models according to some common pattern (within a certain date, not authored by this user, not flagged, etc) and with minor differences from model to model.
There are half a dozen of models involved here (and counting), and most of them have unified column names for certain things (like date of publishing, or whether an item is flagged by admin or not). Hence, the 'where's that go into query are mostly the same. There are minor differences in conditions, but at least 2 or 3 conditions are exactly the same. I easily assume there may be even more similar conditions between models, since we are just starting the feature and haven't figured out the eventual shape of the data yet.
I basically chain the 'where' calls upon each model. It irritates me to have 6 lines of code so close to each other, spanning so far to the right of my code editor, and yet so similar. I am dreaded by the idea that at some point we will have to change one of the 'core' conditions, munging with that many lines of code all at once.
What I'd love to do is to move a core set of conditions that goes into each query into some sort of Proc or whatever, then simply call it upon each model like a scope, and after that continue the 'where' chain with model-specific conditions. Much like a scope on each model.
What I am struggling with is how exactly to do that, while keeping the code inside mailer. I certainly know that I can declare a complex scope inside a concern, then mix it into my models and start each of queries with that scope. However, this way the logic will go away from the mailer into an uncharted territory of model concerns, and also it will complicate each model with a scope that is currently only needed for one little mailer in a huge system. Also, for some queries, a set of details from User model is required for a query, and I don't want each of my models to handle User.
I like the way scopes are defined in the Active Record models via lambdas (like scope :pending, -> { where(approved: [nil, false]) }), and was looking for a way to use similar syntax outside model class and inside my mailer method (possibly with a tap or something like that), but I haven't found any good examples of such an approach.
So, is it possible to achieve? Can I collect the core 'where' calls inside some variable in my mailer method and apply them to many models, while still being able to continue the where chain after that?
The beauty of Arel, the technology behind ActiveRecord query-building, is it's all completely composable, using ordinary ruby.
Do I understand your question right that this is what you want to do?
def add_on_something(arel_scope)
arel_scope.where("magic = true").where("something = 1")
end
add_on_something(User).where("more").order("whatever").limit(10)
add_on_something( Project.where("whatever") ).order("something")
Just ordinary ruby method will do it, you don't need a special AR feature. Because AR scopes are already composable.
You could do something like:
#report_a = default_scope(ModelA)
#report_b = default_scope(ModelB)
private
def default_scope(model)
model.
where(approved: [nil, false]).
order(:created_at)
# ...
end
I have a little problem. I found it really hard to create a title for this, I hope I can explain it better:
One of our clients demanded that in every instance of "item_number", when it's from the Product model, the app will have to show it with 5 leading zeroes.
The "item_number" proprety in that model is in fact an integer on the database.
Our first approach would be just change in the model the value:
def item_number
item_number.to_s.rjust(5, '0')
end
Of course we get a:
SystemStackError at /
stack level too deep
And I'm pretty sure this will mess up when creating/updating records, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't work anyways.
The solution would be simple, just create:
def item_number_with_leading_zeroes
item_number.to_s.rjust(5, '0')
end
And replace item_number with it on our views.
But, we have over 5.000 usages of this, and some of them were not from this model (and we only need to replace the item_number on this model) and some of them are inside Iterators that we coded not using the parent object name (so I may not know if it's from this model or not), others are from custom form inputs, we can't just "replace all".
I would have to manually check every single instance of "item_number" and see if it's needed to change it to that new method or not. And I can still make mistakes and impact a lot of stuff.
I only need to change it on the views, I thought about a way to get it working with the helpers but that would still mean I would have to change it case-by-case.
There is another option to fix it, updating all records on the database to string with the zeroes and making a before_save option from now on, but we would like a rails solution first, before going that way (leaving the DB as is right now).
I'm out of ideas, I don't know if there is a solution, I thought about asking here first hoping someone can share some thought.
Is there any way I can do this without having to manually check the whole application?
Ruby 2, Rails 4.0
Thank you!
Try using read_attribute to avoid the recursion:
class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
...
def item_number
read_attribute(:item_number).to_s.rjust(5, '0')
end
...
end
I'm using Rails 4. I have a class, Cart, which needs to be accessed within my application.
I want it accessed using the factory pattern:
class CartFactory
def self.obtain_cart_for_user(user)
...
end
end
I need this approach because sometimes, I want to return an existing cart and sometimes create a new one (based upon the age of the cart, its contents, whether the products in it are still available etc).
This is easy enough.
However, I also want to make sure some other future programmer doesn't instantiate a cart directly, or fetch one by any other means, including via model associations, such as:
Cart.new(...)
user.carts.new(...)
Cart.find(id)
Cart.find_by_attribute(blah: blah)
Cart.where(...).first
Is there any way to prevent that?
Well, it's possible to make the constructor private:
private_class_method :new
And of course, you can try making the ActiveRecord query methods (.find, .where etc.) private as well. But to me that sounds like a good way to end up with erratic behaviour. If you were to go this route, make sure your app is thoroughly tested first.
Another route would be for Cart not to extend ActiveRecord::Base (which I'm assuming it does), and instead include only the parts you need, like ActiveRecord::Persistence. If you are willing to dive in deep, check out the parts that are included in the source for ActiveRecord::Base.
Edit: Still one option would be to make Cart itself private within a module that only exposes CartFactory. There's no built-in syntax for a "private class", but it's possible to achieve since Ruby classes are just regular objects. Again, no idea how well ActiveRecord would deal with that.
But lastly there is of course the question of whether you want to do this at all. In general, Ruby is not very good at protecting you from yourself. :) As expressed in the latter linked answer, documentation and trust go a long way.
I'm working on an app at work. Basic stuff, user signs up (with an associated organization).
Initially I started off with a simple controller -
# Need to check if organization exists already; deny user creation if it does
if #organization.save
#user.save
redirect_to user_dashboard_path...
I soon found myself in a callback soup:
After the organization is validated, we save the user.
When the organization is created, I create another two models, EmailTemplate and PassTemplate (an organization has_one :email_template, has_one :pass_template)
after_create :init_company, :init_email_template, :init_pass_template, :init_form
Each of those callbacks generally calls method on the model, something like:
def init_email_template
self.email_template.create_with_defaults
end
Initially I thought this was quite clever - doing so much behind the scenes, but I've been reading Code Complete by Steve McConnell, and feel this is not simple at all. If I didn't know what was happening already, There's no hint that any time an organization is created it creates 3 associated objects (and some of those objects in turn initialize children objects).
It seems like a bad programming practice, as it obfuscates what's going on.
I thought about moving all of those initalizations to the controller, as an organization is only ever created once:
class OrganizationsController < AC
...
def create
if #organization.save
#organization.create_user
#organization.create_email_template
#organization.create_pass_template
end
That seems like cleaner code, and much easier to follow.
Question 1
*Are there better solutions, or best practices for handling creating associated objects upon creation of the hub object that I'm unaware of?*
Side note - I would have to rewrite a bunch of tests that assume that associations are automatically created via callbacks - I'm okay with that if it's better, easier to understand code.
Question 2
**What about a similar situation with after_save callbacks?**
I have a customer model that checks to see if it has an associated user_account after creation, and if not, creates it. It also creates a Tag model for that user_account once we've created the user_account
class Customer < AR
after_create :find_or_create_user_account
def find_or_create_user_account
if !self.user_account_exists?
#create the user
end
Tag.create(:user_id => self.user_account.id)
end
end
Somewhat simplified, but again, I believe it's not particularly good programming. For one, I'm putting logic to create two different models in a third model. Seems sloppy and again the principle of separating logic. Secondly, the method name does not fully describe what it's doing. Perhaps find_or_create_user_account_and_tag would be a better name, but it also goes against the principle of having the method do one thing- keeping it simple.
After reading about observers and services, my world was thrown for a bit of a loop.
A few months ago I put everything in controllers. It was impossible to test well (which was fine because I didn't test). Now I have skinny controllers, but my models are obese and, I think, unhealthy (not clear, not obvious, harder to read and decipher for another programmer/myself in a few months).
Overall I'm just wondering if there are some good guides, information, or best practices on separation of logic, avoiding callback soup, and where to different sorts of code
Why not the following?
after_create :init_associated_objects
def init_associated_objects
init_company
init_email_template
init_pass_template
init_form
end
My interpretation with "a method should do one thing" isn't strict and that I usually have a method that calls other method (much like the one above). At the end of the day, it's a divide and conquer strategy.
Sometimes I create utility POROs (plain old ruby objects) when it doesn't make sense to have an AR model but a group of functionalities is a class' responsibility. Reports, for instance, are not AR-backed models but it's easier when a report that needs to call multiple models is just instantiated once where the reporting period start and end are instance variables.
A rule of thumb that I follow: if I instantiate the models outside of the whole MVC stack (e.g. Rails console), the things that I expect to happen should stay inside the model.
I don't claim best practices but these have worked for me so far. I'm sure other people would have a better idea on this.
I know the dogma says to not access current_user in a model but I don't fully agree with it. For example, I want to write a set of logging functions when an action happens via a rails callback. Or simply writing who wrote a change when an object can have multiple people write to it (not like a message which has a single owner). In many ways, I see current_user more as config for an application - in other words make this app respond to this user. I would rather have my logging via the model DSL rather than in the action where it seems REALLY out of place. What am I missing?
This idea seems rather inelegant Access current_user in model
as does this: http://rails-bestpractices.com/posts/47-fetch-current-user-in-models
thx
edit #1
So my question isn't if there are gems that can do auditing / logging. I currently use paper_trail (although moving away from it because I can do same functionality in approx 10 lines of ruby code); it is more about whether current_user should never be accessed in the model - I essentially want to REDUCE my controller code and push down logic to models where it should be. Part of this might be due to the history of ActiveRecord which is essentially a wrapper around database tables for which RoR has added a lot of functionality over the years.
You've given several examples that you'd like to accomplish, I'll go through the solution to each one separately:
I want to write a set of logging functions when an action happens via
a rails callback
Depending on how you want to log (DB vs writing to the logger). If you want to log to the DB, you should have a separate logging model which is given the appropriate information from the controller, or simply with a belongs_to :user type setup. If you want to write to the logger, you should create a method in your application controller which you can call from your create and update methods (or whatever other actions you wanted to have a callback on.)
Or simply writing who wrote a change when an object can have multiple people write to it
class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user, as: :edited_by
end
class FooController < ApplicationController
def update
#foo = Foo.find(params[:id])
#foo.attributes = params[:foo]
#foo.edited_by = current_user
end
end
I think you're misunderstanding what the model in Rails does. Its scope is the database. The reason it can't access current_user, is because the current user is not stored in the database, it is a session variable. This has absolutely nothing to do with the model, as this is something that can not exist without a browser.
ActiveRecord::Base is not a class that is designed to work with the browser, it is something that works with the database and only the database. You are using the browser as an interface to that model, but that layer is what needs to access browser specific things such as session variables, as your model is extending a class that is literally incapable of doing so.
This is not a dogma or style choice. This is a fact of the limitations of the class your model is extending from. That means your options basically boil down to extending from something else, handling it in your controller layer, or passing it to the model from your controller layer. ActiveRecord will not do what you want in this case.
The two links you show (each showing imho the same approach) is very similar to a approach I still use. I store the current_user somewhere (indeed thread-context is the safest), and in an observer I can then create a kind of audit-log of all changes to the watched models, and still log the user.
This is imho a really clean approach.
An alternative method, which is more explicit, less clean but more MVC, is that you let the controller create the audit-log, effectively logging the actions of the users, and less the effects on different models. This might also be useful, and in one website we did both. In a controller you know the current-user, and you know the action, but it is more verbose.
I believe your concerns are that somehow this proposed solution is not good enough, or not MVC enough, or ... what?
Another related question: How to create a full Audit log in Rails for every table?
Also check out the audited gem, which solves this problem as well very cleanly.
Hope this helps.