Question

In my application using CanCan I have permissions where users can view and create stores but I also want them to only be able to edit the ones they’ve created. Users can create as many stores as they like, which all should be editable by them. A store doesn’t have users so how could I do this when theirs no user_id apart of the Store table?

CanCan:

class Ability
  include CanCan::Ability

  def initialize(user)
    user ||= User.new 
    if user.role == "default"
      can :read, Store
      can :create, Store
    end
  end
end

Answer 1

Since a user will be able to create as many stores as they like, a store will belong to a user.

You MUST create this relationship.

So, in the User model.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :stores
end

And in the Store model.

class Store < ActiveRecord::Base
   belongs_to :user
end

And in the ability.rb file, just put something like:

class Ability
  include CanCan::Ability

  def initialize(user)
    user ||= User.new # guest user (not logged in)
    if user.role == 'default'
      can :manage, Store , :user_id => user.id
    end
  end
end