Question

I’m pretty new to rails, so this may be a dumb question, but I’m wondering if the approach I’m taking for saving objects with many relationships is correct.

For example: Take a basic forum app with topics, posts and users. The topic has one user, one forum, and many post. If the user submits a title and message via a form, is this the most effeicent way to save the data across all the tables, or is there a simpler way to do it?

# init new topic object with forum & user relationships
@topic = Topic.new(
  :title    => params[:topic][:title], 
  :forum_id => params[:topic][:forum_id], 
  :user_id  => current_user.id
)

if @topic.save
  # init new post object with topic & user relationships
  @post = Post.new(
    :content  => params[:post][:content],
    :topic_id => @topic.id,
    :user_id  => current_user.id
  )

  if @post.save
    # update user's post count and last post info
    @user = User.find(current_user.id)
    @user.update_attributes(
      :post_count   => @user.post_count + 1,
      :last_post_at => Time.now,
      :last_post_id => @post.id
    )

    # update the forum stats and last post info
    @forum = Forum.find(@topic.forum_id)
    @forum.update_attributes (
      :topic_count  => @forum.topic_count + 1
      :last_post_id => @forum.recent_post.nil? ? 0 : @forum.recent_post.id
    )

    # redirect user back to the topic
    redirect_to topic_path(@topic.id)
end

Is there a better convention or is that pretty much it?

Answer 1

No, This is not a proepr way to write code in rails.
As per the rails your controller should be thin compare to model, so your buisness logic goes to the model and not to controller.

Check following review code

@user = User.find(current_user.id)
@topic = @user.build_topic(params[:topic])
@post = @topic.posts.build(:content  => params[:post][:content], :user_id  => @user.id)
if @topic.save #Don't need to save posts explicitly if any error (i.e validation fails) is occur neither post nor topic 'll get save
  # redirect user back to the topic
  redirect_to topic_path(@topic.id)
end

Use callback after_create in your Post model i.e. post.rb to update the post counts of the user and AND callback after_create in your Topic model i.e. topic.rb to update the topic count of the forum.