Setting an addional attribute on the join model in a has_many through relationship

[Mohamad El-Husseini]

I have User, Account, and Role models. The Account model accepts nested properties for users. This way users can create their account and user records at the same time.

class AccountsController < ApplicationController
  def new
    @account = Account.new
    @user = @account.users.build
  end
end

The above will work, but the user.roles.type defaults to member. At the time of registration, I needuser.roles.type to default to admin. This does not work:

class AccountsController < ApplicationController
  def new
    @account = Account.new
    @role = @account.role.build
    # Role.type is protected; assign manually
    @role.type = "admin"
    @user = @account.users.build
  end
end

I thought about inheritance, but it really complicate things. I need roles to be dynamic so users can add their own admins and mods, and so on. I think I'm running into these issues because I'm not modeling my data modeling correctly.

Accounts#new

<%= simple_form_for(@account, html: { class: 'form-horizontal' }) do |f| %>
  <legend>Account Details</legend>
  <%= render 'account_fields', f: f %>

  <%= f.simple_fields_for :users do |user_form| %>
    <legend>Personal Details</legend>
    <%= render 'users/user_fields', f: user_form %>
  <% end %>

  <%= f.submit t('views.accounts.post.create'), class: 'btn btn-large btn-primary' %>
<% end %>

Models:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :roles
  has_many :accounts, through: :roles
end

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :roles
  has_many :users, through: :roles
  accepts_nested_attributes_for :users
end

# user_id, account_id, type [admin|moderator|member]
class Role < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :user
  belongs_to :account
  after_initialize :init

  ROLES = %w[owner admin moderator member]

  private
  def init
    self.role = "member" if self.new_record?
  end
end

[Mohamad El-Husseini]

My question can be succinctly put: Is it possible to set an additional attribute on the join model when usingaccepts_nested_attributes_for? 

[Colin Law]

On 1 May 2012 17:05, Mohamad El-Husseini <hussei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have User, Account, and Role models. The Account model accepts nested
> properties for users. This way users can create their account and user
> records at the same time.
>
> class AccountsController < ApplicationController
>   def new
>     @account = Account.new
>     @user = @account.users.build
>   end
> end
>
> The above will work, but the user.roles.type defaults to member. At the time
> of registration, I needuser.roles.type to default to admin. This does not
> work:
>
> class AccountsController < ApplicationController
>   def new
>     @account = Account.new
>     @role = @account.role.build
>     # Role.type is protected; assign manually
>     @role.type = "admin"
>     @user = @account.users.build
>   end
> end

It depends what you mean by 'work'. It will assign the type of @role
to "admin" but the problem is that you have not saved it to the
database after changing the type. By the way, I advise against using
type as an attribute name, that is a reserved attribute name for use
with STI.

> ...

> # user_id, account_id, type [admin|moderator|member]
> class Role < ActiveRecord::Base
>   belongs_to :user
>   belongs_to :account
>   after_initialize :init
>
>   ROLES = %w[owner admin moderator member]
>
>   private
>   def init
>     self.role = "member" if self.new_record?
>   end
> end

Should that not be self.type (apart from the fact that type is not a
good name)? But if you want a default value for a column why not just
set the default in the database?

Colin

[Mohamad El-Husseini]

> It depends what you mean by 'work'.  It will assign the type of @role 
> to "admin" but the problem is that you have not saved it to the 
> database after changing the type.  By the way, I advise against using 
> type as an attribute name, that is a reserved attribute name for use 
> with STI.

I did change type to role. I get this rather mysterious error:  Roles en-US, activerecord.errors.models.account.attributes.roles.invalid

def create

    @account   = Account.new(params[:account]) # we don't need @user since it's in params[:account]

    @role      = @account.roles.build

    @role.role = "owner"

end

> Should that not be self.type (apart from the fact that type is not a 
> good name)?  But if you want a default value for a column why not just 
> set the default in the database?

It should, I made the changes in the middle of typing my question. I can add a default value to the db. But I want the be able to set the value depending on content: when a user registers with a new account; when an existing user adds a moderator to his account, etc...

[Colin Law]

On 1 May 2012 22:53, Mohamad El-Husseini <hussei...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> It depends what you mean by 'work'.  It will assign the type of @role
>> to "admin" but the problem is that you have not saved it to the
>> database after changing the type.

You have not responded to the point above

>>  By the way, I advise against using
>> type as an attribute name, that is a reserved attribute name for use
>> with STI.
>
> I did change type to role. I get this rather mysterious error:  Roles en-US,
> activerecord.errors.models.account.attributes.roles.invalid

Come back with more detail on this problem if it still exists. Post
the full error message and show which line of code it relates to.

Colin

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[Mohamad El-Husseini]

  On Wednesday, May 2, 2012 2:35:02 AM UTC-4, Colin Law wrote:

On 1 May 2012 22:53, Mohamad El-Husseini <hussei...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> It depends what you mean by 'work'.  It will assign the type of @role
>> to "admin" but the problem is that you have not saved it to the
>> database after changing the type.

You have not responded to the point above

After another day wasted, I figured out what is happening, but not why. I was misled by the false impression that Rails always saved the joiner model automatically. This is not the case. With this following code snippet Rails automatically creates the Role (joiner) record. But the snippet below it Rails does not. And although I don't know why, this is how Rails works.

 

def new
  @account = Account.new(params[:account])
  @user    = @account.users.build
end
def new
  @account = Account.new(params[:account])
  @account.save
end

This here does not save the Role record: (Interestingly, replace current_user.accounts.build with current_user.accounts.create and Rails will save the Role record)

def new
  @account = current_user.accounts.build
end
def create
  @account = current_user.accounts.build(params[:account])
  @account.save
end

It's not a validation issue either. I created a blank application to test this and the results were consistent.

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