Question

I am using Ruby on Rails 3.2.2 and I would like to know what advantages / disadvantages the following code has or could have:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  before_filter :set_current_user_for_models

  private

  def set_current_user_for_models
    User.current_user = User.find(...) # Find the user from cookies.
  end
end

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :current_user

  private

  def some_method(user)
    if User.current_user == user
      # Make a thing...
    else
      # Make another thing...
    end
  end
end

class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
  def some_method(user)
    if User.current_user == user
      # Make a thing...
    else
      # Make another thing...
    end
  end
end

Have you some advice? How would you improve the code?

Updated after the @tokland comment on the @Wawa Loo answer

Note: the main difference is that User.current_user should be updated also in after_find, after_create, ... model callbacks. Something like this:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :current_user

  after_initialize :some_method

  private

  def some_method
    if User.current_user == self
      # Make a thing...
    else
      # Make another thing...
    end
  end
end

class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
  after_destroy :some_method

  private

  def some_method
    if User.current_user == self.user
      # Make a thing...
    else
      # Make another thing...
    end
  end
end

Answer 1

Your code looks fine. I recommend you to read through this rails style guide for an overview on Rails development.