How to determine a const in some model class? - ruby-on-rails

There is the following model for 'delivery_types' table:
class DeliveryType < ActiveRecord::Base
end
I want to determine a special delivery type, for example, "DELIVERY_BY_TIME", and I want that this const returns DeliveryType.first (I'll put info about this type in my table later). Is it possible? How can I do it? Thanks.

I don't think you can do this, as this is no "real const". What you could do though, is creating a class method, called "by_time", which returns your "by_time" object. I would also not rely on the fact that this is your "first" object. Rather I would use a "find_or_create_by_name("BY_TIME"), which always makes sure you deliver the right object. Combined, something like
def self.by_time
##by_time||= find_or_create_by_name!(name: 'BY_TIME')
end
def by_time?
self == DeliveryType.by_time
end
If you read "Rails anti-patterns", they discourage you from making separate classes for "status" fields. They recommend to just use a string for that in your parent object, with some validators that limit the list of values though...

Related

How to return something from a Concern and update a record?

I want to move some class methods for some of my models that are the same to a concern.
One method takes an input and returns something which then should be used to update a record like this:
def create_sort_title
self.sort_title = self.title.gsub(/^the |^a |^an /i, '').gsub(/'|"|!|\?|-/, '').gsub(/(?<!\w) /,'')
end
While it's clear that I need to refactor it to take an input:
def create_sort_title(title)
self.sort_title = title.gsub...
...
I don't understand how I can RETURN a value to update a record - i. e. how to replace the self.sort_title above with something that then is used to update the sort_title of the corresponding record?
The method is called by a before_safe hook:
before_save :create_sort_title
(and I understand once I take an argument, I need to use a lambda like this:
before_save -> { create_sort_title(title) }
You don't really need to pass any arguments if you're using a concern that is included on the model. When you do include ConcernName you're adding class and/or instance methods on the model class/instance itself. So your create_sort_title method that is called from before_save callback will have access to all instance methods, including title and will work as-is just fine

Handling conditions at class level based on association

I'm not sure how to frame this question, I am looking to solve a design problem.
I'm using ActiveRecord.
An Agency can have multiple documents.
documents has a column additional_details of type jsonb. Contains hash details.
additional_details column has different set of key value pair based on agency.
Example:
doc1 = agency1.documents.first.additional_details => { xml_url: '', ... }
doc2 = agency2.documents.first.additional_details => { feed_url1: '', ... }
agency1 and agency2 are instance objects of Agency.
When I make a call to fetch the url like document.additional_details.get_url
I can write conditions like
def get_url
if agency1.name == 'Utah'
return additional_details[xml_url]
elsif
so on
elsif
so on
end
end
Which is not a good practice I feel.
I believe we can solve this at class level. Note I need to solve this on presentation layer, I'm using decorators .
Edit:
An particular agency will have same keys within additional_details column but values are certainly different.
I am assuming these are Active Record classes? Where is agency1 defined? You should almost never be hard coded based on specific instances, instead any such data should be part of the record and its instance.
It is especially unclear why you have different types of "URL" at all, and not just a simple url string column in the documents table. Why does agency1 use xml_url but agency2 uses feed_url1?
But as an example, if each agency has say a prefix defined (say the domain name / filestore, and the documents just the relative/local address), say:
agency1.document_root = "https://example.com/documents/"
agency1.documents.first.rel_url = "web/rails/rails_example.pdf"
Then in the Document class you might do:
def url
agency.document_root + rel_url
end
Which then gives you the:
agency1.documents.first.url
Add a field to your Agency model where you store the key to the url in the additional data hash. Let's say you name the field url_key. Then you can do
def get_url
additional_details[agency.url_key]
end
Note that I assume that get_url is a method on the Document model.

Where should method go (model?, somewhere else)

I've got a method in one of my models which returns data which will be fed into a charting gem.
class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
def ownership_data
format_data(item_ownerships.group(:owned).count)
end
end
I need to guarantee that the data return always has 2 values in the result. Something like this:
{ "yes" => 4, "no" => 2 }
In order to do this, I've written another method which is used in the first method:
def format_data(values)
values[false].nil? ? values = values.merge({ "no" => 0 }) : true
values[true].nil? ? values = values.merge({ "yes" => 0 }) : true
return values
end
My question is, where should this method go and how can I unit test it using rspec? I've currently got it in the model, however in trying to test it with rspec, my specs look like this:
let(:values) { { "yes" =>2 } }
it "it will return 2 values" do
result = MyModel.new.format_data(values)
expect(result.keys.count).to eq(2)
end
I'm not too happy about having to instantiate an instance of the model to test this. Any guidance is appreciated.
As AJ mentioned in the comment, we probably need more information to go on to give more specific advice. I'll give some anyway...
If you have a object that isn't necessarily depending on the model itself, you should consider moving it to a plain old ruby object or a service object. Those can live in a separate folder (lib/services) or in your models folder without inheriting from ActiveRecord::Base.
Your method could also be a class method def self.method_name(values, values_2) instead of a instance method (if you don't need specific values from the model).
When it comes to data manipulation for reporting for my projects, I've built specific folder of ruby service objects for those under 'lib/reports' and they take raw data (usually in init method) and return formatted data from a method call (allowing me to have multiple calls if the same data can be formatted in different output options). This makes them decoupled from the model. Also, this makes testing easy (pass in known values in Class.new expect specific values in method outputs.

Implement a sort as a class method in Ruby

ActiveRecord gives me a back a set of Users. I want to sort those users by a complex function that uses data not persisted in the User object.
Is there a way to use a scope when the data isn't persisted?
Is there a way to write a sort function as a class method, so I can make a call like:
sorted_users = User.first(20).sorted_my_way
i think it is not possible to do it this way.
it is possible to define class methods and scopes that can be called like User.first(20).sorted_my_way but those can only append stuff to the query you create. if you want to sort within ruby, i think that you need to wrap the whole stuff like:
class User
self.sorted_my_way(limit)
first(20).sort_by {...}
end
end
User.sorted_my_way(20)
another thing that you could do would be to use a block style method:
class User
self.sorted_my_way
yield.sort_by {...}
end
end
User.sorted_my_way { first(20) }

<< operator in ruby

I am quite new to ruby,
I came across the following code in rails, but I don't know how the "<<" operator works and what it does in the below code
def <<( rate )
r = Rating.new
r.rate = rate
r.rateable = proxy_owner
...
...
end
class << ActiveRecord::Base
...
...
end
Can anybody explain to me?
Edit: here is the code https://github.com/azabaj/acts_as_rateable/blob/master/lib/acts_as_rateable.rb
def <<( rating ):
In your example, this is used to add a rating to a rateable model. (E.g. in acts_as_rateable.rb:41), similar to appending something to a string (str << "abc"). As it is within a module, it will only be included for the models that you declare as rateable.
class << ClassName:
All the methods inside of this block will be static / class methods (see this blog entry). (In this case, all the models will have the methods Model.example_static_method.)
Nearly all operators in Ruby are actually instance methods called on the object preceding them.
There are many different uses for << depending on the object type you're calling it on. For example, in an array this works to push the given value onto the end of the array.
It looks like this is for a Rails model object, so in that case I would say that this is an auxiliary method called when you append a model object to model object collection. For example, in this case you might be appending a Rating to a Product.
If you showed the whole method definition and showed what class it's in, I could provide a more specific answer.

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