CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsactiverecordfiltercontroller
lunr
lunr

Reputation: 5269

Filtering models using controller specific data

I have an application which is used by several divisions, where each of them has a separate set of data. So i got many models with a division_id field which indicates the division the row belongs to.

Each user has the division information also, so when they log in, i have to filter the data according to the division. So there are many places in my code where i do this for example:

Contact.where(division_id: current_user.division_id)

My question is how to refactor this code fragment? First i have thought about utilizing the default scope of the ActiveRecord, but since the division_id is a controller specific data, that didn't seem right. Any ideas?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 41

Answers (1)

pdobb
pdobb

Reputation: 18037

I'm not sure why you say division_id is controller-specific data because it looks like you're getting the division from the User object (current_user.division_id). Anyway, the best thing to do would probably be just to make use of scopes here and then repeat the scope. For example:

# app/models/contact.rb
scope :for_user_division, -> user { where(division_id: user.division_id }

But it's still going to be repetitive calling e.g.

Contact.for_user_division(current_user)

everywhere. The main advantage is you can now change the rules of the scope in one place if you need to add something like only considering active? divisions later.

I don't think there's need nor want to DRY this up further. In general, I think default scopes are a bad thing because, in cases like this, a little bit of repetition is useful in reminding yourself what it is your'e dealing with -- a limited set of Contacts.

UPDATE If you find yourself writing the same scope in more than one model then you can surely DRY up the scope by putting it into a concern and including it into each model as needed.

Upvotes: 1

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