Rails polymorphic commenting with permalink/token urls - ruby-on-rails

Question

In my app I have a commenting system that's largely based off of this railscast. Now in my models I'm changing the to_param to a random string so the id isn't in the url. But then that breaks commenting.
status.rb
class Status < ActiveRecord::Base
attr_accessible :content, :member_id, :document_attributes, :permalink
belongs_to :member
belongs_to :document
has_many :comments, as: :commentable, dependent: :destroy
before_create :make_it_permalink
accepts_nested_attributes_for :document
def to_param
permalink
end
private
def make_it_permalink
# this can create permalink with random 12 digit alphanumeric
self.permalink = SecureRandom.hex(12)
end
end
statuses_controller.rb
class StatusesController < ApplicationController
before_filter :authenticate_member!, only: [:index, :new, :create, :destroy]
before_filter :find_member
rescue_from ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound do
render file: 'public/404', status: 404, formats: [:html]
end
def index
#statuses = Status.order('created_at desc').page(params[:page]).per_page(21)
respond_to do |format|
format.html # index.html.erb
format.js
end
end
def show
#status = Status.find_by_permalink(params[:id])
#commentable = #status
#comments = #commentable.comments.order('created_at desc').page(params[:page]).per_page(15)
#comment = #commentable.comments.new
respond_to do |format|
format.html # show.html.erb
format.json { redirect_to profile_path(current_member) }
end
end
def new
#status = Status.new
#status.build_document
respond_to do |format|
format.html # new.html.erb
format.json { render json: #status }
format.js
end
end
def create
#status = current_member.statuses.new(params[:status])
respond_to do |format|
if #status.save
#activity = current_member.create_activity(#status, 'created')
format.html { redirect_to :back }
format.json
format.js
else
format.html { redirect_to profile_path(current_member), alert: 'Post wasn\'t created. Please try again and ensure image attchments are under 10Mbs.' }
format.json { render json: #status.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
format.js
end
end
end
def destroy
#status = current_member.statuses.find(params[:id])
#activity = Activity.find_by_targetable_id(params[:id])
#commentable = #status
#comments = #commentable.comments
if #activity
#activity.destroy
end
if #comments
#comments.destroy
end
#status.destroy
respond_to do |format|
format.html { redirect_to profile_path(current_member) }
format.json { head :no_content }
end
end
private
def find_member
#member = Member.find_by_user_name(params[:user_name])
end
def find_status
#status = current_member.statuses.find_by_permalink(params[:id])
end
end
comments_controller.rb
class CommentsController < ApplicationController
before_filter :authenticate_member!
before_filter :load_commentable
before_filter :find_member
def index
redirect_to root_path
end
def new
#comment = #commentable.comments.new
end
def create
#comment = #commentable.comments.new(params[:comment])
#comments = #commentable.comments.order('created_at desc').page(params[:page]).per_page(15)
#comment.member = current_member
respond_to do |format|
if #comment.save
format.html { redirect_to :back }
format.json
format.js
else
format.html { redirect_to :back }
format.json
format.js
end
end
end
def destroy
#comment = Comment.find(params[:id])
respond_to do |format|
if #comment.member == current_member || #commentable.member == current_member
#comment.destroy
format.html { redirect_to :back }
format.json
format.js
else
format.html { redirect_to :back, alert: 'You can\'t delete this comment.' }
format.json
format.js
end
end
end
private
# def load_commentable
# resource, id = request.path.split('/')[1,2] # photos/1/
# #commentable = resource.singularize.classify.constantize.find(id) # Photo.find(1)
# end
# alternative option:
def load_commentable
klass = [Status, Medium, Project, Event, Listing].detect { |c| params["#{c.name.underscore}_id"] }
#commentable = klass.find(params["#{klass.name.underscore}_id"])
end
#def load_commentable
# #commentable = params[:commentable_type].camelize.constantize.find(params[:commentable_id])
#end
def find_member
#member = Member.find_by_user_name(params[:user_name])
end
end
The problem lies in the load_commentable method in the comments_controller. I've tried a couple different variations of the method but the second one works best for my app and it was working when the url's had their id's in them. But since I overwrote the to_param to use my random permalink commenting stopped working because it's trying to find theid where it equals the permalink. Since it seems to try to find the id through the url, how do I pass the the actual id and not the permalink or how do I find commentable by it's permalink instead of id?

Answer 1

It's hard to tell if your param will always be the value of id or always be the permalink, or will sometimes be an id and sometimes a permalink.
If it will always be a permalink, then do:
#commentable = klass.find_by_permalink(params["#{klass.name.underscore}_id"])
instead of
#commentable = klass.find(params["#{klass.name.underscore}_id"])
If it is sometimes id and sometimes other, then you will need make logic to determine which is needed based on the class.