Catch Error from external API in Rails - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am building a simple web app that sends SMS messages to cell phones using Twilio. I want to ensure that the user has entered a full 10 digit phone number before it will allow a message to attempt to be sent.
When I test it with a less-than or greater-than 10 digit number, in heroku logs, I see Twilio::REST::RequestError (The 'To' number 1234567890 is not a valid phone number.).
I have tried to use a begin/rescue wrapper and am telling it to render text: "Try again with a valid number." and tried a variety of if statements to try to avoid the error.
I am pretty new to Ruby and Rails and Twilio, but I promise i have been through every guide I have found. Any help is greatly appreciated. Full code of my UserController below:
require 'twilio-ruby'
class UsersController < ApplicationController
def new
#user = User.new
end
def create
#user = User.new(params[:user])
account_sid = '...'
auth_token = '...'
if #user.save
render text: "Wasn't that fun? Hit the back button in your browser to give it another go!"
begin
client = Twilio::REST::Client.new account_sid, auth_token
client.account.sms.messages.create(
from: '[phone]',
to: #user.phone,
body: #user.message
)
rescue Twilio::REST::RequestError
render text: "Try again with a valid number."
end
else
render :new
end
end
end

Answer 1

I'd extract the SMS sending logic into a separate model/controller and use a background job to process the submitting. The UserController should only handle, well, user creation/modification.
Scaffolding:
$ rails g model sms_job user:references message:text phone submitted_at:datetime
$ rake db:migrate
Model:
class SmsJob < AR::Base
attr_accessible :user_id, :message, :phone
belongs_to :user
validates_presence_of :message, :phone, :user_id
validates :phone,
length: { min: 10 },
format: { with: /\+?\d+/ }
scope :unsubmitted, where(submitted_at: nil)
TWILIO = {
from_no: '...',
account_sid: '...',
auth_token: '...'
}
# find a way to call this method separately from user request
def self.process!
unsubmitted.find_each do |job|
begin
client = Twilio::REST::Client.new TWILIO[:account_sid], TWILIO[:auth_token]
client.account.sms.messages.create(
from: TWILIO[:from_no],
to: job.phone,
body: job.message
)
job.submitted_at = Time.zone.now
job.save
rescue Twilio::REST::RequestError
# maybe set update a tries counter
# or delete job record
# or just ignore this error
end
end
end
end
The controller then should just provide the information that the SMS is going to be send:
# don't forget the 'resources :sms_jobs' in your routes.rb
class SmsJobsController < ApplicationController
# index, update, destroy only for only admin?
def new
#sms_job = SmsJobs.new
end
def create
#sms_job = current_user.sms_jobs.build params[:sms_job]
if #sms_job.save
redirect_to root_url, notice: "Your message is being send!"
else
render :new
end
end
end
For the background processing, have a look at these excellent Railscasts :-) You probably need to workaround some concurrency problems if you have to process many messages and/or Twilio has a long response time (didn't use that service yet).