Question

I have a method in one of my models that, when called, fetches a tweet using the twitter gem and stores some parts of it. I’d like to be able to trigger that action from the web interface to my app. What is the Rails Way to accomplish this? I’ve seen some references to not calling model methods from views, so should I be doing this from within a controller somehow instead?

My method (the relevant models are Sponsor and Sponsortweet (so my model name wouldn’t conflict with Tweet, from the gem):

def create_tweet                                                                  
    tweet = Twitter.user_timeline(self.twitter).first                               
    self.sponsortweets.create!(content: tweet.text,                                 
                               tweet_id: tweet.id,                                  
                               tweet_created_at: tweet.created_at,                  
                               profile_image_url: tweet.user.profile_image_url,     
                               from_user: tweet.from_user,)                         
end

EDIT:

I created a tweet method in my sponsors controller:

def tweet
  @sponsor = Sponsor.find(params[:id])
  @sponsor.create_tweet
end

and added the following to my config/routes.rb: match 'tweet', to: 'sponsors#tweet', via: :post.

As well as the following code in my view (I’m using haml):

= button_to :tweet, tweet_path(@sponsor)

However, clicking the button results in the following error:

Couldn't find Sponsor without an ID

Answer 1

Your view should have a button that posts to a specific route in your controller. That controller would then call the method in your model. Having no idea what your app actually looks like, here’s an example:

EDIT includes better example

View (assuming it’s a Sponsor view):

<%= button_to :submit, tweet_path %>

Controller:

def tweet
    Sponsor.create_tweet
end

And your model would stay the same, except you’d change your method to a class method like so:

def self.create_tweet
    ...your code here...
end

Since it seems this isn’t tied to any particular sponsor, you’ll use a class method and thus don’t need an instance of the class to call your method. That said, it seems like you would want an instance of your class at some point…