Best behaviour for an association builder

Rails
1

Hi there,
I have a solution for this,
but I don’t like the way it returns its result.

listing.attach_file(file, description, category_ids)
-> [“the file is not a valid type”, “category:17 doesn’t exist”]

in the case that the attachment failed

or

listing.attach_file(file, description, category_ids)
-> []

in the case of success.

here are the models;

class Listing
has_many :listing_attachments
has_many :attachments, :through => :listing_attachments
end

class ListingAttachment
belongs_to :listing
belongs_to :attachment

the only interesting feature of this is that it has a :description

field
end

class Attachment
has_many :attachment_categories
has_many :categories, :through => :attachment_categories
file_column :file_name
end

class AttachmentCategory
…
end
class Category
…
end

I have the following requirements for the function:

  1. take 4 inputs: a Listing, an uploaded file, the description,
    category_ids
  2. create an Attachment with the given “uploaded file”
  3. give that attachment the desired categories
  4. link this to the Listing
  5. ensure the :listing_attachment has the “description” set.

My current solution is the following;

class Listing
def attach_file(file, description, category_ids)
# do it
# stick any validation errors into an array
return errors=[]
end
end

but it feels dirty returning an “error_array”
and “return false, errors=[]”, feels even worse.

hmm…

MatthewRudy