Saving records recursively with Mongoid, Ancestry - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have a model Line Items embedded in Line model. In Line create view, I have provided ability to define multiple nested levels of line items.
Here is a random snap of param[:line]:
=> {"title"=>"Hello", "type"=>"World", "line_items"=>{"1"=>{"name"=>"A",
"position"=>"1", "children"=>{"1"=>{"name"=>"A1", "position"=>"1",
"children"=>{"1"=>{"name"=> "A11", "position"=>"1"}, "2"=>{"name"=>"A12",
"position"=>"2"}}}, "2"=>{"name"=>"A2", "position"=>"2"}}}, "3"=>
{"name"=>"B", "position"=>"3"}}}
In Line#create, I have:
def create
#line = Line.new(params[:line])
if #line.save
save_lines(params[:line][:line_items])
flash[:success] = "Line was successfully created."
redirect_to line_path
else
render :action => "new"
end
end
In Line#save_lines, I have:
# Save children up to fairly infinite nested levels.. as much as it takes!
def save_lines(parent)
unless parent.blank?
parent.each do |i, values|
new_root = #line.line_items.create(values)
unless new_root[:children].blank?
new_root[:children].each do |child|
save_lines(new_root.children.create(child))
end
end
end
end
end
LineItem Model looks like:
class LineItem
include Mongoid::Document
include Mongoid::Timestamps
include Mongoid::Ancestry
has_ancestry
# Fields
field :name, type: String,
field :type, type: String
field :position, type: Integer
field :parent_id, type: Moped::BSON::ObjectId
attr_accessible :name, :type, :url, :position, :parent_id
# Associations
embedded_in :line, :inverse_of => :line_items
end
in Line model, i have:
# Associations
embeds_many :line_items, cascade_callbacks: true
Which work as expected. But, is there a better way to save the line_items recursively with Ancestry?

Answer 1

I think your code looks fine. I just refactored it.
How about:
def save_lines(parent)
parent.each do |i, values|
#get children hash if any
children = values.delete("children")
# create the object with whatever remain in values hash
#line.line_items.create(values)
# recurse if children isn't empty
save_lines(children) if children
end
end