Question

I am using devise and cancan for user authentication and permissions. I need to create a default set of permissions for any NEW user ONLY. I don’t want to mess with devise code so it should be in my user model. What is the best way to do it.

Ok here is what I tried in my model:

before_create :setup_permissions

    def setup_permissions 
    permissions = []
        @roles = Role.where('subject_id is null and permissions = ?', 'Read')
            @roles.each do |role|
            permissions << {:role_id => role.id}
            end
        self.role_assignments_attributes = permissions  
    end

But the above code gives an error.

Interestingly I ran code to build permissions from above in console line by line. It produces correct array as shown below.

permissions =  [{:role_id=>15}, {:role_id=>17}, {:role_id=>19}, {:role_id=>21}, {:role_id=>23}, {:role_id=>25}, {:role_id=>27}]

And it works when I paste the permissions array directly in the model instead of building it as shown below:

def setup_permissions 
permissions =  [{:role_id=>15}, {:role_id=>17}, {:role_id=>19}, {:role_id=>21}, {:role_id=>23}, {:role_id=>25}, {:role_id=>27}]

    @roles = Role.where('subject_id is null and permissions = ?', 'Read')
        @roles.each do |role|
        permissions << {:role_id => role.id}
        end
    self.role_assignments_attributes = permissions  
   end

Answer 1

I got it to work by adding .to_a at the end of Model.where() to convert it into an array. Rails returns an ActiveRecord::Relationship when you use Model.where() clause instead of Array in case of Model.find(id). This should be corrected and made similar in both cases.

before_create :setup_permissions
    def setup_permissions 
    permissions = []
        @roles = Role.where('subject_id is null and permissions = ?', 'Read').to_a
            @roles.each do |role|
            permissions << {:role_id => role.id}
            end         
       end