Hey I wasn't quite sure what to call this but here's the deal.
I'm trying to only assign things to my database value if
There isn't a value in the database already, and
The value I'm assigning isn't blank.
The rudimentary version of this code is:
venue.address = venue_json['address'] if venue.address.blank? && !venue_json['address'].blank?
where venue is my ActiveRecord result.
This is what I have now (a little better). With the init_value in the Venue.rb class.
Venue.init_value(venue.address, venue_json['address'])
def self.init_value(record, value)
if record.blank? && !value.blank?
record = value
end
end
I'd like to get to this point, but really have no idea how.
venue.address.init_value(venue_json['address'])
especially since I'd like it it work with any attribute of the ActiveRecord class not just the address value.
Separating it into a method sounds like a good idea, but in this case it makes more sense to use an instance method rather than a class method.
def init_attribute(attribute, value)
self.update(attribute => value) if self.send(attribute).blank? && value.present?
end
venue.init_attribute(:address, venue_json['address'])
Some quick comments on the snippet above:
Using direct assignment won't persist the database value. You could go with something else like update or update_column. Or you can use assignment and then call #save on the object.
Whenever you need something not to be blank, you can use the more readable Object#present? which is part of ActiveSupport.
You'll need to call the method with the same name as the attribute on the database object. For this you'll want to use Object#send from Ruby.
Related
I have a database trigger that modifies a field on INSERT. Then when I run object.my_attribute it returns nil instead of lets say 42.
If I do object.reload.my_attribute, this is fine. But I don't want to reload the whole object or part of it unless it is necessary. And I believe code shouldn't be concerned when and how an object was created. It should just be correct.
Is it possible to mark that particular attribute as outdated and any attempt to get its value to result in a query that fetches it from database?
For example:
after_save :forget_my_attribute
def forget_my_attribute
forget_field :my_attribute
end
I think it's better to make some service object where field is modified and call it when create the record. CreateModel.call(args) instead of Model.create(args). It will be more clear than database trigger I think
But you can do something like this
after_create_commit :fetch_my_attribute
def fetch_my_attribute
self[:my_attribute] = self.class.find_by(id: id)[:my_attribute]
end
Or more flexible fetch attribute you need dynamically
def fetch_attribute(atr)
self[atr] = self.class.find_by(id: id)[atr]
end
object.fetch_attribute(:my_attribute)
I was wondering if I could update a record (entire row) given a replacement activerecord object.
Something like
Car.find_by(number: 1) = replacement_information_for_car_1
where replacement_information_for_car_1 is a Car activerecord object that I would like to use to replace the old record currently on the table.
You could do something like:
attributes = replacement_information_for_car_1.attributes
attributes.delete('id') # and anything else you don't want/can't be copied
Car.find_by(number: 1).update(attributes)
Not the cutest thing in the world, but it should do the trick.
The thing about ActiveRecord objects is that they have a unique identifier that you don't want to override. You'll have to assign the attributes without the id, that is most likely to be nil in your example.
Car.find_by(number: 1).update(replacement_information_for_car_1.attributes.except(:id))
That's a long line that can be refactored to something like
new_attributes = replacement_information_for_car_1.attributes.except(:id)
Car.find_by(number: 1).update(new_attributes)
I'm trying to override a initialize in a ActiveRecord model, I just saw one thing that I could not understand what was happening there. I wrote this initialize method:
def initialize params={}
super params
#data = Date.strptime(params[:data], '%d/%m/%Y') if not params[:data].nil?
self.number = generate_contract_number(params[:unit]) if not params[:unit].nil?
self
end
Given the generate_contract_number works and Date.strptime works as well. My question is: Why when I do self.number= the number is set and when I do #number= the number is not set. But when I do just the same with #contract_date= it works, and the self.contract_date= is set automatically?
Thanks
Don't override ActiveRecord's initialize; use an after_initialize callback.
For more details, see this SO post.
I don't see anything about #contract_date, so I'm not sure what you mean. Without the model definition it's tough to say more, we don't know what #data or #contract_date is, or what "working" means. Bear in mind that an ActiveRecord's DB attributes aren't simple #-style attributes.
I am using Ruby on Rails 3.0.7 and I would like to understand how to handle the following code in order to retrieve a class objects with a specified id.
In my view file I have:
#records = Users.all # This returns an array (class)
In another file, a partial template, I would like to retrieve, for example, the user with id 1, but if I make this:
#records.find(1)
I get an enumerator (class) of all records:
<Enumerator: [<Users id: 1, ... ] >
How can I find the user with id 1 (or other ids) "a là Ruby on Rails Way"?
UPDATE
I use #records = Users.all in a view file because I aim to minimize calls to the database since I need to iterate almost over all records and check them existence. If I do for example:
some_hash.each { |key, value|
put User.find(value)
}
and I go in the log file, I will see a lot of database requests.
Even though this is probably quite slow, and I suspect there are some less than optimal designs in the app you're working on (not judging, we've all been there), Array#index seems to be what you're looking for:
#records[#records.index{|user| user.id == 1}]
Edit
Although if you need to do something for every user, and you need to access them by id quickly, I'd probably do something like this in your controller. Even if it's not really faster, it's much more readable (to me anyways):
#users_hash = {}
User.all.each{|user| #users_hash[user.id] = user}
Then in your views you can do:
#users_hash[id].username
Use User.scoped instead of User.all. #all will immediately query the database and return an array, whereas #scoped will return an ActiveRecord::Relation object which you can chain further queries. In this case, the database won't be hit until you try and somehow inspect or enumerate the result
Actually you're mistaken. #records.find(1) is returning an object of the class Enumerator (which is not the same as the class Enumerator itself).
The problem here is that, as you've noted, #records is an Array, not an ActiveRecord object, and Array#find (inherited from Enumerable#find--which, when not given a block, returns an object of class Enumerable) is not the same method as ActiveRecord::Base#find (i.e. User#find).
What you should do is, in your controller, pick out the one user record you want:
#user = User.find 1
...and then use #user directly in your template. Generally you should avoid doing ActiveRecord lookups (e.g. find) in your templates. That kind of logic should happen in your controller.
Last time for such case I ended up doing like this:
#assignments = Assignment.find_by_sql(' ... ')
#assignments.find(id: 1).first
Hopefully I haven't misunderstood the meaning of "duck typing", but from what I've read, it means that I should write code based on how an object responds to methods rather than what type/class it is.
Here's the code:
def convert_hash(hash)
if hash.keys.all? { |k| k.is_a?(Integer) }
return hash
elsif hash.keys.all? { |k| k.is_a?(Property) }
new_hash = {}
hash.each_pair {|k,v| new_hash[k.id] = v}
return new_hash
else
raise "Custom attribute keys should be ID's or Property objects"
end
end
What I want is to make sure that I end up with a hash where the keys are an integer representing the ID of an ActiveRecord object. I don't particularly enjoy having to iterate through the hash keys twice with all? to determine if I need to grab the ID's out.
Of course, I'll accept any other suggestions to improve this code as well :)
How you write this method should depend on whether you expect an exception to be thrown during the course of normal program execution. If you want a readable exception message because an end-user might see it, then throwing one manually makes sense. Otherwise, I'd just do something like this:
def convert(hash)
new_hash = {}
hash.each_pair { |k,v| new_hash[ k.is_a?(Integer) ? k : k.id ] = v }
return new_hash
end
This will accomplish exactly the same thing, and you'll still get an exception if an array key doesn't have an id field. Even better, this uses a little more duck typing because now anything that has an id field will be acceptable, which is better than explicitly checking for something being a Property. This makes your code more flexible, especially when unit testing.
We still have an explicit check for integer objects, but this kind of occasional special case is usually acceptable, especially when checking for built-in data types.
Duck typing is really just a nuanced version of polymorphism. In a statically typed language like Java you'd have to create an explicit interface that told the compiler all of the methods that a particular variable can accept. With a dynamic language like Ruby the interfaces still exist in an abstract sense, they're just implicit.
The problem is the fact that you're accepting two different data structures into one method. The way to make duck typing work is to require that all the objects that get passed to your method obey the same contract (i.e. it's always a hash of Integers to [Foo] objects.) The process of converting a hash with Property keys into the correct structure should be the job of the client code. That can be done very easily with a simple wrapper class or a conversion function consisting of just the body of your elseif clause.
Bottom line it's up to the guy calling the method to make sure his parameters all quack the way your method expects them to quack. If they don't, he's the one who need's to figure out how to make his turkey quack like a duck, not you.
What I want is to make sure that I end up with a hash where the keys are an integer representing the ID of an ActiveRecord object.
You should probably check for that when you're creating/inserting into the hash. You could try something like this:
h = {}
def h.put obj
self[obj.id]=obj
end
or maybe
h = {}
def h.[]= key, value
raise "hell" unless key == value.id
super
end