if @user.save && @institution.save &&
@institution_membership.save
end
end
end
To put this into context. A user can belong to one or many institutions.
The relationship is managed through :institution_memberships. A user can
only have one membership per institution, hence the
validates_uniqueness_of :user_id, :scope => :institution_id
There is a lot more code happening around all of this than i've shown,
but the main problem is that basically two memberships are being created
for a user with the same institution. The validate is not working. The
after_create callback is creating an object successfully, and the
standard save in the controller is working.
My guess is it has something to do with the timing of things and when
they're actually written to the database, but i don't know that process
well enough to pinpoint the exact cause. Obviously there is no need to
create a membership object in the controller, but the code had been that
way for a long time without a problem. Nobody noticed it until suddenly
the bad data started showing up. I'm more curious as to why the
validation goes through.
Can you post a log of the SQL that gets executed during the transaction? I’m curious about what the validates_uniqueness_of is looking up, if anything.
The @user object is getting saved first. That time, there is no
instuition membership attached to it. So one is getting created. Then
when you save the instuition membership again inside the controller it
also gets saved.
Yeah, It’s exactly that… you are creating a user before the Institution…
But I your controller isn’t searching for some Institution while creating the User… I just see your controller creating an Institution… doesn’t matter if already exists…
The @user object is getting saved first. That time, there is no
instuition membership attached to it. So one is getting created. Then
when you save the instuition membership again inside the controller it
also gets saved.
Is this clear?
You just restated what i had initially written.
The "problem" is something to do with how rails connects newly
initialized objects that are in memory but not yet in the database.
We have built two objects like this
u = User.new
im = InstitutionMembership.new :user => u
At that point the u (User) object doesn't know anything about the im
object. Saving the u object does not trigger an autosave on the
association, and the create callback creates a new membership. That's
somewhat expected.
The odd issues appear after -
u = User.new
im = InstitutionMembership.new :user => u
u.save
im.save
'im' is aware of the user object, however it is not able to validate
against it. When it attempts to validate, the user_id==NULL. At the very
next log entry though, it saves itself with the correct user_id. So
somewhere between the validate callbacks, and the create and commit
callbacks, the 'im' object refreshed the user object and retrieved the
user_id. Also the new_record? flag on 'im' is still set, so a new row is
created.
One of the better solutions was actually to do:
u = User.new
im = u.institution_memberships.build
This is able to properly connect the objects in memory, and the process
works smoothly. The association is autosaved on u.save
The @user object is getting saved first. That time, there is no
instuition membership attached to it. So one is getting created. Then
when you save the instuition membership again inside the controller it
also gets saved.
Is this clear?
You just restated what i had initially written.
The "problem" is something to do with how rails connects newly
initialized objects that are in memory but not yet in the database.
We have built two objects like this
u = User.new
im = InstitutionMembership.new :user => u
At that point the u (User) object doesn't know anything about the im
object. Saving the u object does not trigger an autosave on the
association, and the create callback creates a new membership. That's
somewhat expected.
So tell ActiveRecord that you *want* the autosave:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :account
has_many :institution_memberships, :autosave => :always
has_many :institutions, :through => :institution_memberships
after_create :set_default_membership
def set_default_membership
if institution_memberships(true).blank?
institution_memberships.create(default_data_from_account)
end
end
end
class InstitutionMembership < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :institution
validates_uniqueness_of :user_id, :scope => :institution_id
end
Note the argument to 'institution_memberships(true)' which causes the memberships to be reloaded from the database.
The odd issues appear after -
u = User.new
im = InstitutionMembership.new :user => u
u.save
im.save
I assume that you've simplified this so that the account_id or however the default_data_from_account manages to find the institution_id is missing.
u = User.new
u.institutions << Institution.find(somehow)
or
u = User.new
u.institution_memberships << InstitutionMembership.new(:institution_id => from_a_parameter_perhaps)
The @user object is getting saved first. That time, there is no
instuition membership attached to it. So one is getting created. Then
when you save the instuition membership again inside the controller it
also gets saved.
Is this clear?
You just restated what i had initially written.
The "problem" is something to do with how rails connects newly
initialized objects that are in memory but not yet in the database.
We have built two objects like this
u = User.new
im = InstitutionMembership.new :user => u
At that point the u (User) object doesn't know anything about the im
object. Saving the u object does not trigger an autosave on the
association, and the create callback creates a new membership. That's
somewhat expected.
So tell ActiveRecord that you *want* the autosave:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :account
has_many :institution_memberships, :autosave => :always
has_many :institutions, :through => :institution_memberships
after_create :set_default_membership
def set_default_membership
if institution_memberships(true).blank?
institution_memberships.create(default_data_from_account)
end
end
end
class InstitutionMembership < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :institution
validates_uniqueness_of :user_id, :scope => :institution_id
end
Note the argument to 'institution_memberships(true)' which causes the memberships to be reloaded from the database and the :autosave option added to the has_many.
The odd issues appear after -
u = User.new
im = InstitutionMembership.new :user => u
u.save
im.save
I assume that you've simplified this so that the account_id or however the default_data_from_account manages to find the institution_id is missing.
u = User.new
u.institutions << Institution.find(somehow)
or
u = User.new
u.institution_memberships << InstitutionMembership.new(:institution_id => from_a_parameter_perhaps)