Question

I would like to populate various tables in my database after a new customer signs up to use our web application. I’m wondering what the best way to do this is, the main requirement being that it should not require any intervention by me. Most of the data is static (but can be changed by the customer later (like preferences for example)), but will obviously need the customer’s ID as a way of linking the created records to this customer.

I considered putting a few

Object.create(:customer_id => @customer.id, :yummy => "maybe", :etc => true)

statements in the controller that handles signups, but that annoying little alarm bell that tells me there’s a better way is going off again!

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Gav

Answer 1

In your controller

class AccountController < ApplicationController
after_filter :populate_db  :only=>[:register] 
  def populate_db
    # whatever stuff
    Account.populate
  end
end

And put the logic inside your model:

class Account < ActiveModel::Base
  def populate
  # your logic
  end
end