I have a model which has one main table with 22 fields and 5 join tables — some input data may need to be checked in the DB and converted from a value to id before insertion.
Currently I have a 950 line chunk of codes that does validation/db checks/conversions all in one go. The problem I see is that the code isn’t very flexible and hard to test. I’d also have to copy-paste/rewrite it for every other insert/update action depending if its using similar fields or not.
Is there an approach that has worked for you that you could suggest me? Separate each field into its own function? (Then I’d have to also separate each field, and by validation and conversion?)
I suggest you break that down into more methods… each method should do one thing, and one thing only. That makes it easy to test, and more flexible. If your methods are more than 10-20 lines, they may be doing too much.
Once you’ve got a collection of methods in your class that each do one thing, then you can create the method you’ll actually call, and have it call those smaller methods for you.
Doing this lets your controller still make the same one method call, but your validation code is now more reusable and testable.