Save referenced resource on update_attributes (create nested resource on edit) - ruby-on-rails

I have something like issue tracking system where there are issues and they have some comments.
Now on one page I want to give user an option to edit some stuff of "issue" as well as add a comment. Editing of and issue is a standard stuff like in /edit but also I want to create a comment and validate if it's not blank.
I've figured out that I can build a comment and make a form for it, but how should I check simultaneously that both issue attributes and comment attributes are valid? Because each update should be followed by a new comment, but I don't want to create a new comment if the issue attributes are no valid.

I would approach this by first adding fails_validation? methods to both your Issues and Comments models to check for problems.
Second, you will have to manually load the #issue form data from params[] and validate it BEFORE you save it (can't use update_attributes(params[:issue]).) Create a new Comment and load it via params[]. Then you can test the validation on both models and go back to the edit action if either fails.
If both pass you can save #issue and then #comment as normal.
def update
#issue = Issue.find(params[:id])
# manually transfer form data to the issue model
#issue.title = params[:issue][:title]
#issue.body = params[:issue][:body]
#...
#comment = #issue.comments.new(params[:comment])
# validate both #issue and #comment
if #issue.fails_validation? || #comment.fails_validation?
flash[:error] = "Your edits or your comment did not pass validation."
render :action => "edit",
end
# validation passed, save #issue then #comment
respond_to do |format|
if #issue.save
#comment.save
format.html { redirect_to #issue, notice: 'Issue successfully updated. Comment created' }
format.json { head :ok }
else
format.html { render action: "edit" }
format.json { render json: #issue.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
Not the most elegant solution, but it should work.

You can validate the comment model and the issue model in their respective classes.
It is not clear to me whether you are using 'accepts_nested_attributes_for' in Issue for comments. If you are, then the standard IssueController#update will not save the record if issue is invalid and consequently, it will not create the comment records as well.
Here is the standard IssueController#update:
class IssueController < ApplicationController
def update
#issue = Issue.find(params[:id])
if #issue.update_attributes(params[:issue])
redirect_to issues_path, notice: 'issue updated'
else
render action: 'edit'
end
end

Related

Keep changes on reload if validation fails

I'm working with validations in rails, stuff like:
validates_presence_of :some_field
I've noticed that if the validation fails, all changes are overwritten with existing values from the database. This makes some sense, as the page is basically being reloaded (as I gather from my development log), however this increases the risk of user error/frustration, as a single error in one field will require the hapless fellow to re-enter the changes he made to all fields.
My question: How can I get rails to reload the data that was just submitted if validation fails? That way, the user can correct the mistake without needing to re-enter the rest of his revisions.
Thanks for any advice.
Edit:
My update method, as requested, is as follows:
def update
#incorporation = Incorporation.find(params[:id])
#company = #incorporation.company
begin
#company.name="#{params[:company][:names_attributes].values.first["name_string"]} #{params[:company][:names_attributes].values.first["suffix"]}"
rescue NoMethodError
#company.name="Company #{#company.id} (Untitled)"
end
if #company.update(company_params)
redirect_to incorporations_index_path
else
redirect_to edit_incorporation_path(#incorporation)
end
end
Full disclosure regarding my controller: the above update is from my incorporations_controller even though I'm updating my Company model. Company has_one :incorporation. I did this because, in the larger context of my app, it made my associations much cleaner.
Update your controller to this
def update
#incorporation = Incorporation.find(params[:id])
#company = #incorporation.company
begin
#company.name="#{params[:company][:names_attributes].values.first["name_string"]} #{params[:company][:names_attributes].values.first["suffix"]}"
rescue NoMethodError
#company.name="Company #{#company.id} (Untitled)"
end
respond_to do |format|
if #company.update(company_params)
format.html { redirect_to({:action => "index"})}
else
format.html{render :edit}
format.json { render json: #incorporation.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
To add to the correct answer, you can clean up your code quite a bit:
def update
#incorporation = Incorporation.find params[:id]
respond_to do |format|
if #incorporation.update company_params
format.html { redirect_to({:action => "index"})}
else
format.html { render :edit }
format.json { render json: #incorporation.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
If you're using accepts_nested_attributes_for, you definitely should not hack the associated objects on the front-end.
You should look up fat model, skinny controller (let the model do the work):
#app/models/company.rb
class Company < ActiveRecord::Base
before_update :set_name
attr_accessor :name_string, :name_suffix
private
def set_name
if name_string && name_suffix
self[:name] = "#{name_string} #{name_suffix}"
else
self[:name] = "Company #{id} (Untitled)"
end
end
end
This will allow you to populate the name of the `company. To edit your nested/associated objects directly is an antipattern; a hack which will later come back to haunt you.
The key from the answer is: render :edit
Rendering the edit view means that your current #company / #incorporation data is maintained.
Redirecting will invoke a new instance of the controller, overriding the #incorporation, hence what you see on your front-end.

Rails redirect if validation fails

In a Rails 3.2 app, I have a validation for an attachment type.
Attachment model:
class Attachment < ActiveRecord::Base
validates_presence_of :name
validates_attachment_presence :attach, :message => "No file selected"
validate :check_type
def check_type
if self.costproject_id != nil
if self.attach_content_type != 'application/pdf'
self.errors.add(:pdf, " ONLY")
return false
end
end
end
But, the return false sends me to this URL:
http://localhost:3000/attachments
I want it to go back to the previous input screen:
http://localhost:3000/attachments/new?costproject_id=2
How do I accomplish that?
Thanks!!
UPDATE1
Perhaps the redirect has to take place in the controller?
format.html { render action: "new" }
Attachment controller:
# POST /attachments
# POST /attachments.json
def create
#attachment = Attachment.new(params[:attachment])
respond_to do |format|
if #attachment.save
format.html { redirect_to session.delete(:return_to), notice: 'Attachment was successfully created.' }
format.json { render json: #attachment, status: :created, location: #attachment }
else
format.html { render action: "new" }
format.json { render json: #attachment.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
I changed this line:
format.html { render action: "new" }
To:
format.html { redirect_to request.referer }
And now it goes back to where I want. But, I've lost the errors - they don't display.
To help you understand what's going on here. When you go to /attachments/new you are rendering a form. When you press submit, you are sending a POST request to /attachments, which invokes the create action.
You're create action appears to be solid and idomatic. However when you render action: "new" in the case of an error, it's not a full redirect, it's rendering the form in the context of the current action.
Normally this is fine, because idomatic rails would have you building a single, very similar, model object in both new and create, and the form for helper would render that object. However your new action is creating all kinds of objects based on a large assortment of query parameters, which I'm guessing is why you are seeing behavior you don't like.
I expect your final solution will involve bringing all those parameters into Attachment in some way, if they don't need to be saved to the database, you can make attr_accessors on Attachment
# Model
class Attachment < ActiveRecord::Base
attr_accessor :worequest_id, :workorder_id # etc
end
# View
<%= form_for #attachment do |f| %>
<%= f.hidden :worequest_id %>
<% end %>
Approaching it this way, your post request params will look like
{
attachment:
{
worequest_id: 1,
# etc
}
}
And you would also need to rework your query params to nest the inidividual ids inside of an attachment
/attachments/new?[attachment][worequest_id]=1
This way you could build attachment from params in both actions:
Attachment.new(params[:attachment])
And now your current create action should more or less work as expected, because now it's idomatic rails.
You still aren't going to get the new action with the same query params, but since you are taking those params and filling them in hidden fields on the form, they won't be lost when you try and fail to create. In any case, unless you do something to persist the values between requests, the POST to /attachments is going to wipe out the ery params.
Try this.
Replace
return false
With
redirect_to request.referrer || root_url
Note: root_url here is a catchall. Also this is Rails 4, I do not know if it also applies to Rails 3. Worth a try, though.
Debug ideas
First confirm a simple redirect_to root_url (or whatever name you use for your root) works in your controller
redirect_to root_url
Then, once redirect_to confirmed working, focus on getting the REST interface "request." information. There's a Rails 3 discussion here which may help you.
How to get request referer path?

Rails redirect_to in controller to correct page

I have several models with has_many :attachments.
I'm trying to redirect back to the Note view after the Note is created.
This is the attachments controller code I'm trying. The #note tells me that this attachment is related to that Note.
# GET /attachments/new
# GET /attachments/new.json
def new
#attachment = Attachment.new
#comment = params[:comment_id]
#note = params[:note_id]
respond_to do |format|
format.html # new.html.erb
format.json { render json: #attachment }
end
end
# POST /attachments
# POST /attachments.json
def create
#attachment = Attachment.new(params[:attachment])
respond_to do |format|
if #attachment.save
if #note != nil
format.html { redirect_to note_path(#note), notice: 'Attachment was successfully created.' }
else
format.html { redirect_to attachments_path, notice: 'Attachment was successfully created.' }
end
But, #note is nil by the time the create code happens.
Thanks for the help!
As a rule, you probably won't see "new" and "create" blocks executed in the same context. That's a bit of a mouthful, so lets be a bit more specific: the variables you declare in "new" won't still exist when "create" is called. So, any variables you want to use in "create" must be declared there as well.
One thing you can do (depending on the code) is share a block between different controller methods that initialized these variables for you. For example:
before_filter :initialize_vars, only: [:new, :create]
...
def initialize_vars
#note = params[:note_id]
end
The "before_filter" will execute the "initialize_vars" method before any new request is sent to the "new" or "create" methods.
More generally, this relates to a pretty important Rails concept (and server-side web engineering in general) - that there is very little "state" within the server. The server takes a request, processes it, and forgets about it. Everything that's needs to be remembered must be stored in the server, or somehow communicated by the request the user sends.

Using .dup and .update_attributes to generate a model instance is causing creation of extra instances upon failing validation

I have a validation for the Activity model and this is the create action in the activities_controller. When I try to save the model without meeting the validations, an extra activity instance is being created. Why is an activity being created when it fails the validations?
def create
#activity_last = Activity.find(params[:activity_id])
#activity = #activity_last.dup
#activity.activity_date = Time.now
respond_to do |format|
if #activity.update_attributes(params[:activity])
format.html { redirect_to #activity.tenant, notice: 'Activity was successfully created.' }
format.json { render json: #activity.tenant, status: :created, location: #activity.tenant }
else
format.html { render action: "new" }
format.json { render json: #activity.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
The reason I am using dup here is because I want to create a duplicate of the latest activity and then update a subset of its attributes from the params. So for explanation sake, say Activity had 10 attributes. The user would go to a form that has field for 3 of these attributes. I then want to create a new activity that has all the same attribute values as the latest activity for the attributes not being updated by the user.
--Update--
I have uncovered why this was happening. I shortened the code above so that there would be less clutter but as part of that shortening I cut out the following lines:
#comment = Comment.new(params[:comment])
#comment.user = current_user
#comment.activity = #activity
#comment.save!
The app works correctly when I move the saving of the comment to after the saving of the activity. My guess is that saving a comment that is linked to an activity that hasn't been saved causes the activity to be saved?

New to jQuery/Ajax how can I add a user relation to creating a new review?

I have been trying to get to grips with jQuery and been following a railscast on adding an Ajax add review form, which works fine but I would now like to add into it the ability for a review to belong to a user as well as a venue.
Reviews controller
def create
#review = Review.create!(params[:review])
#review.venue = #venue
if #review.save
flash[:notice] = 'Thank you for reviewing this venue!'
respond_to do |format|
format.html { redirect_to venue_path(#venue) }
format.js
end
else
render :action => :new
end
end
views\reviews\create.js.erb
$("#new_review").before('<div id="flash_notice"><%= escape_javascript(flash.delete(:notice)) %></div>');
$("#reviews_count").html("<%= pluralize(#review.venue.reviews.count, 'Review') %>");
$("#reviews").append("<%= escape_javascript(render(:partial => #review)) %>");
$("#new_review")[0].reset();
I have tried changing the controller to:
def create
#review = #current_user.reviews.create!(params[:review])
#review.venue = #venue
if #review.save
flash[:notice] = 'Thank you for reviewing this venue!'
respond_to do |format|
format.html { redirect_to venue_path(#venue) }
format.js
end
else
render :action => :new
end
end
but it just wont submit, with no errors.
I think I have the models set correctly with belongs_to and has_many, I think this is a controller issue I'll add other code bits if needed.
Development log
NoMethodError (undefined method `reviews' for nil:NilClass):
app/controllers/reviews_controller.rb:14:in `create'
Thanks for any help!
It appears that your error is residing with #current_user. According to your development log, #current_user is nil when you call #current_user.reviews on it. I would say track down where this #current_user instance variable is being set and find out why it is nil. Now, what kind of authentication are you using? Most authentication plugins, especially those used by Ryan Bates of the Railscasts you mentioned, use a local variable, say just current_user, as the means to access the currently signed in user. I know I do in all my code.
So, rewrite the line as
#review = current_user.reviews.create!(params[:review])
and see if that works. If it doesn't, change it back and then track down where this #current_user is being set. Chances are good it is being set in a before_filter :method_name at the beginning of your controller.
Calling create! (with exclamation mark) will throw an exception and thus abort your create action if saving fails. Check your log/development.log for these exceptions.
Use build instead of create and lose the exclamation mark.
def create
#review = #current_user.reviews.build(params[:review])
#review.venue = #venue
if #review.save
flash[:notice] = 'Thank you for reviewing this venue!'
respond_to do |format|
format.html { redirect_to venue_path(#venue) }
format.js
end
else
render :action => :new
end
end

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