Question

I have a form being submitted for a complex model including many associations. I need to save 2 copies of the object. One that will not be touched and is used only as a reference for what was originally submitted, the other will be edited by my users.

I originally preformed a deep clone of the object and all associations, and then saved both to the database, marking a field for which was the original, and which can be edited. This is becoming too complex however and I would like a simpler solution

I was thinking my best bet would be to serialize the entire object and store it in a single field within the editable object. So my question is: Is it possible to serialize an object, including associations, and store it in a single field?

Should I do this at the model level? or should I just save what was returned from the form in a single field? (ie. application.original_form = params[:application]).

Thanks for your help!
Ryan

EDIT —

I am attempting this approach:

https://gist.github.com/1298567

I am saving the returned parameters in a serialize field.

Does anyone see any downfall with this? It seems like the simplest approach.

Thanks again!

Ryan

Answer 1

I’ve gone with this approach:

 def create
    @app = App.new(params[:app])
    @app.original = params[:app]
    respond_to do |format|
      if @app.save
        format.html { redirect_to(done_path(@app.member.id)) }
      else
        format.html { render :action => "new" }
      end
    end
end

#show the original Application
def show
   @app = App.new(App.find(params[:id]).original)
end

#Model

class App < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_one :applicant

  serialize :original, Hash

  accepts_nested_attributes_for :applicant
end

To me this seems like the simplest approach to the issue.