Validating the presence of two associated objects from both models

rubyonrails-talk
1

I have a model “Conversation” and a model “Leader”. A Conversation is always led by exactly 1 Leader.

I’ve overridden Conversation’s “validate” method to validate the presence of an associated Leader model.

If I add a similar validation to the Leader model, however, Conversations can no longer be saved on creation because the Leader model is invalid.

On creation of both a new Conversation and new Leader how can I validate in each model that it is associated with the other? Is there a best practice? The closest I’ve come is to override Leader’s “validate_on_update” method to ensure the presence of a Conversation but that still allows new Leader objects to be created without a Conversation, filling my tables with junk.

2

How about this:

class Conversation < ActiveRecord::Base   validates_presence_of :leader end

That way you can't save a conversation without assigning it a leader, but the leader doesn't have to be saved yet.

3

That way you can't save a conversation without assigning it a leader, but the leader doesn't have to be saved yet.

Well, that’s where I’m at right now. I’d like to be in a situation where Conversation validates that it has a Leader and Leader validates it has a Conversation before either is saved.

4

Evan,

Don’t overdo your requirements. Take your requirements lightly.

From what I can see in your example, Leader plays a larger role in your domain, so it has priority over the Conversation.

I would model Leader having zero or more (0…*) Conversations, Conversation having 1 Leader. A simple one to many relationship between those domain objects.

As from what I can tell, your are trying to create both at the same time in the view, thus sending both objects over to the controller.

While creating a Conversation, you could give the user the opportunity to create a Leader, if its currently not available, or he wants to get a new one. You could use AJAX to access the create action in the leader controller having it available prior to saving the Conversation.

Check out this resource by Ryan Bates. http://railscasts.com/episodes/57-create-model-through-text-field

Regards, Rodrigo Dellacqua IBM - IGF Project Manager “Communication is the key”

5

Evan Chaney wrote:

That way you can't save a conversation without assigning it a leader, but the leader doesn't have to be saved yet.

Well, that�s where I�m at right now. I�d like to be in a situation where Conversation validates that it has a Leader and Leader validates it has a Conversation before either is saved.

Just validate that there are keys: Conversation validates_presence_of :leader, Leader validates_presence_of :conversation (perhaps). Do the rest with foreign key constraints in the DB. As you've discovered, the application layer is the wrong place for this sort of simple integrity check.

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Best,