Associations seemed saved in console, but aren't

Rails
1

I have a Course model:

class Course < ActiveRecord::Base

belongs_to :interaction_outline, :class_name => “Tree”, :foreign_key
=> “interaction_outline_id”
belongs_to :token_outline, :class_name => “Tree”, :foreign_key =>
“token_outline_id”

after_save :make_outlines

def make_outlines
self.create_interaction_outline :name=>
self.name+"_interaction_outline"
self.create_token_outline :name=> self.name+"_token_outline"
end

end

After it is saved, the course creates some default outlines/trees. These
in turn create some defaults:

class Tree < ActiveRecord::Base

has_many :edit_lists, :dependent=> :destroy
has_many :definitions, :dependent=> :destroy
has_many :courses
belongs_to :tree_node #the top node

validates_presence_of :name
validates_uniqueness_of :name

after_save :make_top

def make_top
self.create_tree_node
self.tree_node.create_definition :name=>“top”, :content=>
“”
end

end

The app is basically an outline editor that swaps in xml values for
outline items.

When I create a course in the console, all the defaults are created and
associations set:

c=Course.create :name=>“foo”
=> #<Course id: 5, name: “foo”, interaction_outline_id: 14,
token_outline_id: 15, created_at: “2011-07-19 17:11:18”, updated_at:
“2011-07-19 17:11:18”>

c
=> #<Course id: 5, name: “foo”, interaction_outline_id: 14,
token_outline_id: 15, created_at: “2011-07-19 17:11:18”, updated_at:
“2011-07-19 17:11:18”>

c.interaction_outline
=> #<Tree id: 14, name: “foo_interaction_outline”, tree_node_id: 14,
created_at: “2011-07-19 17:11:18”, updated_at: “2011-07-19 17:11:18”>

c.interaction_outline.tree_node
=> #<TreeNode id: 14, tree_id: nil, definition_id: 10, ancestry: nil,
position: nil, created_at: “2011-07-19 17:11:18”, updated_at:
“2011-07-19 17:11:18”>

c.interaction_outline.tree_node.definition
=> #<Definition id: 10, name: “top”, content:
“”, tree_id: 14, created_at: “2011-07-19
17:11:18”, updated_at: “2011-07-19 17:11:18”>

HOWEVER, they are not actually saved:

Course.all
=> [#<Course id: 5, name: “foo”, interaction_outline_id: nil,
token_outline_id: nil, created_at: “2011-07-19 17:11:18”, updated_at:
“2011-07-19 17:11:18”>]
What?

This is the value returned by my controllers, too, with no foreign keys
and thus no includes possible. Why?

I have confirmed that all my composed objects are valid.

Thanks!

Matt

2

After some research, I moved the creation of the associated objects to
the controller#create, where it belongs, really, and the code worked.

I was getting contradictory results in the console because I was using
the after_save filter. At first, the various builds/associations done in
the after_save filter are reflected in the status of the record in the
console. However, the associations/foreign keys were NOT saved since
they were created after_save. So when I called up the record from the db
again (Course.all), they were gone–tho the associated objects
themselves were in the db.

3

My first guess would be that it has to do with the definitions for the
following methods:

create_tree_node
tree_node.create_definition

What happens if, after the IRB code you pasted in, you call

c.save
Course.all

(if that doesn’t work, does the following work?)

c.interaction_outline.save
c.interaction_outline.tree_node.save
Course.all