on model update attribute

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi

any idea why on model this wont work:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base

def approve User.find(params[:id]).update_attribute('status',"1") end end

now I have controller with approve action and I see from the log that sql statement goes and updates that record but status wont change to 1.

any ideas ?

2

how exactly do you see this?

I see from the log that sql statement goes and updates that record but status wont change to 1

so you see the sql statement in the log and the change in the database? but any later request returns the wrong value? or you see the sql statement and nothing changes in the db

or does any 'older' user object not reflect the changes? that would be normal

3

are you sure the column in which you're putting the number 1 is a string? (that's what you're passing it)

4

yes that was it. it was defined as tinyint i changed it to int. works now thanks man

5

This may be a bit subtle, but you might want to encapsulate the concept of "approve" into the model. As it stands presently, you've essentially mixed some business logic (what it means to approve a user) into your controller. If you ever decide to change that concept you're going to have to visit the controller... and every other place that relies on User.status = 1 meaning "approved". You might consider something like this:

class User   def approve     update_attributes(:status, 1)   end

  def approved?     self.status==1   end   ... end

By doing this you've encapsulated the 'approved' concept into your model and you can change your mind about the implementation later. For example, maybe you want to use the acts_as_state_machine plugin and introduce the idea of suspending the user. That would likely change how you approve the user and how you test for it. With the code above you can simply say...

@user = User.find(params[:id]) @user.approve

redirect :back unless @user.approved?