AR update / create pattern: is there an easier way?

rubyonrails-talk
1

I find myself writing the following frequently:

    r = MyActiveRecord.where(:attr1 => cond1, :attr2 => cond2, ...)     r.exists? ? r.first : r.create

... which has the effect of returning an instance of MyActiveRecord if all the conditions are met, or creating one if it doesn't. A variant of this:

    c = MyActiveRecord.new(:attr1 => val1, :attr2 => val2, ...)     r = MyActiveRecord.where(:attr1 => c.attr1, :attr2 => c.attr2, ...)     c.save! unless r.exists?

... which has the effect of writing c to the db only if it is unique across the given attributes.

Question: Do either of these forms replicate functionality already provided by ActiveRecord? (I know about the find_or_create dynamic methods, but those get unwieldy with more than two attributes.) Is there a cleaner or more idiomatic way?

- ff

2

You want to look at the create_or_update_by_id and find_or_initialize_by_id methods :slight_smile: