Question

I wish to create a polymorphic class (User) as a particular type and use it later with conditions depending on the type of object.

class SuperUser < User
class Admin < User
class User

@user = @account.users.new(params[:user])

This will create a user as a User object. Only way I can think of creating and using @user as a particular type of object is by doing something like this:

@user = Admin.new(params[:user]) if params[:user][:type] == "Admin"
@user = SuperUser.new(params[:user]) if params[:user][:type] == "SuperUser"
@user.account = @account

if @user.is_a? Admin 
 ...
end

....

So, is there a better way to do this?

Answer 1

You can define polymorphic_new class method for User

class User
  def self.polymorphic_new(params)
    case params[:type]
    when "Admin" then Admin.new(params)
    when "SuperUser" then SuperUser.new(params)
    else new(params)
  end
end 

And then in controller

@user = User.polymorphic_new(params[:user])

I’m not concerned the security question though..