Question

I have a rails model that looks something like this:

class Recipe < ActiveRecord::Base    has_many :ingredients    attr_accessor :ingredients_string    attr_accessible :title, :directions, :ingredients, :ingredients_string     before_save :set_ingredients     def ingredients_string       ingredients.join('\n')    end     private     def set_ingredients       self.ingredients.each { |x| x.destroy }       self.ingredients_string ||= false       if self.ingredients_string          self.ingredients_string.split('\n').each do |x|             ingredient = Ingredient.create(:ingredient_string => x)             self.ingredients << ingredient          end       end    end end 

The idea is that when I create the ingredient from the webpage, I pass in the ingredients_string and let the model sort it all out. Of course, if I am editing an ingredient I need to re-create that string. The bug is basically this: how do I inform the view of the ingredient_string (elegantly) and still check to see if the ingredient_string is defined in the set_ingredients method?

Answer 1

Using these two together are probably causing your issues. Both are trying to define an ingredients_string method that do different things

   attr_accessor :ingredients_string     def ingredients_string       ingredients.join('\n')    end 

Get rid of the attr_accessor, the before_save, set_ingredients method and define your own ingredients_string= method, something like this:

def ingredients_string=(ingredients)     ingredients.each { |x| x.destroy }     ingredients_string ||= false     if ingredients_string         ingredients_string.split('\n').each do |x|             ingredient = Ingredient.create(:ingredient_string => x)             self.ingredients << ingredient         end     end end 

Note I just borrowed your implementation of set_ingredients. There’s probably a more elegant way to break up that string and create/delete Ingredient model associations as needed, but it’s late and I can’t think of it right now. 🙂