I have User, Account, and Role models. The Account model accepts nested properties for users. This way users can create their account and user records at the same time.
class AccountsController < ApplicationController
def new
@account = Account.new
@user = @account.users.build
end
end
The above will work, but the user.roles.type defaults to member. At the time of registration, I needuser.roles.type to default to admin. This does not work:
class AccountsController < ApplicationController
def new
@account = Account.new
@role = @account.role.build
# Role.type is protected; assign manually
@role.type = "admin"
@user = @account.users.build
end
end
I thought about inheritance, but it really complicate things. I need roles to be dynamic so users can add their own admins and mods, and so on. I think I’m running into these issues because I’m not modeling my data modeling correctly.
Accounts#new
<%= simple_form_for(@account, html: { class: 'form-horizontal' }) do |f| %>
<legend>Account Details</legend>
<%= render 'account_fields', f: f %>
<%= f.simple_fields_for :users do |user_form| %>
<legend>Personal Details</legend>
<%= render 'users/user_fields', f: user_form %>
<% end %>
<%= f.submit t('views.accounts.post.create'), class: 'btn btn-large btn-primary' %>
<% end %>
Models:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :roles
has_many :accounts, through: :roles
end
class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :roles
has_many :users, through: :roles
accepts_nested_attributes_for :users
end
# user_id, account_id, type [admin|moderator|member]
class Role < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :account
after_initialize :init
ROLES = %w[owner admin moderator member]
private
def init
self.role = "member" if self.new_record?
end
end
My question can be succinctly put: Is it possible to set an additional attribute on the join model when usingaccepts_nested_attributes_for?
I have User, Account, and Role models. The Account model accepts nested
properties for users. This way users can create their account and user
records at the same time.
class AccountsController < ApplicationController
def new
@account = Account.new
@user = @account.users.build
end
end
The above will work, but the user.roles.type defaults to member. At the time
of registration, I needuser.roles.type to default to admin. This does not
work:
class AccountsController < ApplicationController
def new
@account = Account.new
@role = @account.role.build
# Role.type is protected; assign manually
@role.type = "admin"
@user = @account.users.build
end
end
It depends what you mean by 'work'. It will assign the type of @role
to "admin" but the problem is that you have not saved it to the
database after changing the type. By the way, I advise against using
type as an attribute name, that is a reserved attribute name for use
with STI.
...
# user_id, account_id, type [admin|moderator|member]
class Role < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :account
after_initialize :init
ROLES = %w[owner admin moderator member]
private
def init
self.role = "member" if self.new_record?
end
end
Should that not be self.type (apart from the fact that type is not a
good name)? But if you want a default value for a column why not just
set the default in the database?
Colin
It depends what you mean by ‘work’. It will assign the type of @role
to “admin” but the problem is that you have not saved it to the
database after changing the type. By the way, I advise against using
type as an attribute name, that is a reserved attribute name for use
with STI.
I did change type to role. I get this rather mysterious error: Roles en-US, activerecord.errors.models.account.attributes.roles.invalid
def create
@account = Account.new(params[:account]) # we don’t need @user since it’s in params[:account]
@role = @account.roles.build
@role.role = “owner”
end
Should that not be self.type (apart from the fact that type is not a
good name)? But if you want a default value for a column why not just
set the default in the database?
It should, I made the changes in the middle of typing my question. I can add a default value to the db. But I want the be able to set the value depending on content: when a user registers with a new account; when an existing user adds a moderator to his account, etc…
It depends what you mean by 'work'. It will assign the type of @role
to "admin" but the problem is that you have not saved it to the
database after changing the type.
You have not responded to the point above
By the way, I advise against using
type as an attribute name, that is a reserved attribute name for use
with STI.
I did change type to role. I get this rather mysterious error: Roles en-US,
activerecord.errors.models.account.attributes.roles.invalid
Come back with more detail on this problem if it still exists. Post
the full error message and show which line of code it relates to.
Colin
It depends what you mean by ‘work’. It will assign the type of @role
to “admin” but the problem is that you have not saved it to the
database after changing the type.
You have not responded to the point above
After another day wasted, I figured out what is happening, but not why. I was misled by the false impression that Rails always saved the joiner model automatically. This is not the case. With this following code snippet Rails automatically creates the Role (joiner) record. But the snippet below it Rails does not. And although I don’t know why, this is how Rails works.
def new
@account = Account.new(params[:account])
@user = @account.users.build
end
def new
@account = Account.new(params[:account])
@account.save
end
This here does not save the Role record: (Interestingly, replace current_user.accounts.build with current_user.accounts.create and Rails will save the Role record)
def new
@account = current_user.accounts.build
end
def create
@account = current_user.accounts.build(params[:account])
@account.save
end
It’s not a validation issue either. I created a blank application to test this and the results were consistent.
