User.init method inside User.rb. Is this good practice?

[Brandon]

I'm sort of conflicted here. I'm using CanCan and it automatically load and authorize User/Create.

My Facebook/Init is as follows. I'm tempted to do something similar and call User/Init from User/Create method. This way I hide the implementation in the UserController so User/Create and User/Update will still call the User/Init method. The problem starts when I need the Controller to know whether it is a new record or just an update.

Would you do this differently?

class Facebook < ActiveRecord::Base

  belongs_to :user

  def self.init(fb_user)

    user = User.find_by_identifier(fb_user.try(:identifier).try(:to_s))

    if user

      user.identifier   = fb_user.try(:identifier).try(:to_s)

      user.access_token = fb_user.access_token.try(:to_s)

    else

      user = User.new

      user.updating_password = true

      user.identifier   = fb_user.try(:identifier).try(:to_s)

      user.access_token = fb_user.try(:access_token).try(:to_s)

      user.username     = fb_user.try(:username).try(:to_s)

      user.send_registration_confirmation

    end

    user

  end