CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rubyruby-on-rails-3classmethods
JoshL
JoshL

Reputation: 1499

How to extend a custom rails method?

I have a Rails model called Projects:

class Project < ActiveRecord::Base

that has a variety of toggle switches, such as active, started, paid, etc.

I then have a method to return the status in human readable format:

def status
  return 'Pending' if self.pending?
  return 'Started' if self.started
  return 'In Review' if self.in_review?
  return 'Approved' if self.approved
  return 'Active' if self.active
end

Right now I have another method called status! that returns the same information but in symbol form, which is inefficient in my mind:

def status
  return :pending if self.pending?
  return :started if self.started
  return :awarded if self.awarded
  return :in_review if self.in_review?
  return :approved if self.approved
  return :active if self.active
end

What I would obviously like to do is something more like status.to_sym but can't figure out how to make that happen.

Any thoughts?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 80

Answers (2)

Billy Chan
Billy Chan

Reputation: 24815

At first I highly double these methods are efficient.

These methods are to define a certain status at a workflow. In common sense they are mutually exclusive. That is, a project "in pending" could not be a project "active", or "in review", or any other status in this group.

Based on above, why don't you set all of these status as an Enum attribute "status" in this model? This attribute value could be any one within "pending, active, started..." By this you use one field to replace 5 fields.

Then it's easy to get the status in human readable format directly in view, even without a controller method.

<strong>Status: </strong><%= @project.status.titleize %>

Upvotes: 0

mind.blank
mind.blank

Reputation: 4880

How about this:

def status
  return 'Pending' if self.pending?
  return 'Started' if self.started
  return 'In Review' if self.in_review?
  return 'Approved' if self.approved
  return 'Active' if self.active
end

def status!
  # added gsub otherwise 'In Review' is returned as ':in review'
  status.gsub(/\s+/, "_").downcase.to_sym
  # status.parameterize.underscore.to_sym <- another option, Rails only
end

Upvotes: 1

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