# Auditing: session\[:user\] reference in after\_save callback **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 23, 2008, 11:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/auditing-session-user-reference-in-after-save-callback/135661 "2008-04-23T23:01:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chrisdwan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/7feea3/32.png) [@chrisdwan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chrisdwan)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 11:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/auditing-session-user-reference-in-after-save-callback/135661/1 "2008-04-23T23:01:16Z")
I know, it is against the MVC to speak directly to a session object in the model but I am looking for a solution to this problem with auditing I have a SystemLog model which works as a sort of auditor to track changes. It has a user\_id that references the user that initiated the change and a text string with a description and some other columns. Whenever I save a model, i want to create a SystemLog object with values I can get from the model that is being saved itself, except for the user\_id. How am I supposed to get the session[:user] data neatly to the model the way Ruby wants it to? Or is there any other way to realise this auditing process which I am overlooking? The alternative violates the DRY philosophy. After every call to @object.save in the controller I manually create a new SystemLog object with the @object’s attributes and session[:user] variable. ---
**Author:** ![chrisdwan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/7feea3/32.png) [@chrisdwan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chrisdwan)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2008, 11:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/auditing-session-user-reference-in-after-save-callback/135661/2 "2008-04-23T23:17:22Z")
I’m probably mis-understanding the question, but is the problem you want information about the user logged in? Could you not do a Find on the user table using the ID of the user saved in the [:session] ? On Apr 23, 5:01 pm, Chris D. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![chrisdwan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/7feea3/32.png) [@chrisdwan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chrisdwan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 12:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/auditing-session-user-reference-in-after-save-callback/135661/3 "2008-04-24T00:00:13Z")
Here’s a solution by Pratik, although I have the feeling that he’s, err, somehow opposed to it. Just a gut feeling 🙂 [http://m.onkey.org/2007/10/17/how-to-access-session-cookies-params-request-in-model](http://m.onkey.org/2007/10/17/how-to-access-session-cookies-params-request-in-model) Another solution mentioned in the first Rails Recipes book was to (mis)use ActionController::Caching::Sweeping; because of their task, Sweepers are observers that have access to the current controller. I have yet to use them, but this approach seems to be quite clean to me. Take a look at a comment by August L. in Pratiks article, he has some example code for this. HTH. ---
**Author:** ![chrisdwan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/7feea3/32.png) [@chrisdwan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chrisdwan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/auditing-session-user-reference-in-after-save-callback/135661/4 "2008-04-24T16:24:56Z")
Use an attr\_accessor in your model. attr\_accessor :user\_id after\_save :audit def audit @systemlog = SystemLog.new @systemlog.user\_id = self.user\_id end On Apr 23, 6:01 pm, Chris D. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![chrisdwan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/7feea3/32.png) [@chrisdwan](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chrisdwan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 12:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/auditing-session-user-reference-in-after-save-callback/135661/5 "2008-04-24T00:01:46Z")
sw0rdfish wrote: > I’m probably mis-understanding the question, but is the problem you > want information about the user logged in? Could you not do a Find on > the user table using the ID of the user saved in the [:session] ? > > On Apr 23, 5:01�pm, Chris D. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) Thats the plan yeah. But the thing is I want need the logged in user (from the session in my MODEL, since this is the only place I can call my before\_ and after\_save functions. So the hard part is getting the ID from the session to the Model, since this is not really Ruby’s way of doing it.