# Best way to organize non-controller logic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [March 21, 2006, 12:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-organize-non-controller-logic/84407 "2006-03-21T00:46:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 12:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-organize-non-controller-logic/84407/1 "2006-03-21T00:46:21Z")
I don’t want to put certain code in my controller because I think it makes things more confusing. What is the best way to manage business logic such that it doesn’t end up in the controller? Basically, where should I put my regular utility classes and backing objects that may not be models? Thanks, Wes ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 12:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-organize-non-controller-logic/84407/2 "2006-03-21T00:55:06Z")
application.rb can be a good spot for general purpose stuff - I put e.g. my date formatting stuff in there to ensure dates are shown consistently across an entire site. Regards Dave M. ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 1:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-organize-non-controller-logic/84407/3 "2006-03-21T01:32:38Z")
you could create modules and put them in the lib directory. ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 3:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-organize-non-controller-logic/84407/4 "2006-03-21T03:54:47Z")
Can you give an example of business logic that doesn’t interact with a model? On 3/20/06, Chris H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid – Jeremy H. > **[Jeremy Huffman, the Website - jeremyhuffman.com](https://jeremyhuffman.com/)** > > Jeremy Huffman, the Website > > > > > Getting in Touch > > You can email me if you can guess the addres... ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 1:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-organize-non-controller-logic/84407/5 "2006-03-21T13:03:16Z")
for me, I have to access external information on an AS/400 system. My only access to the system is via ODBC, for which there is no AR Adapter avaliable. so what i did was create a module for making connections to and extracting information from the AS/400 and put it in the lib directory. AS400.rb require ‘dbi’ module AS400 def AS400.get\_some\_data(args) # do the AS/400 stuff here # massage the data if needed (strip whitespaces, do some calculations, etc) return data end end then where i need it, typically a controller, i just require ‘AS400’ and do AS400.get\_some\_data(12345) . Chris ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 4:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-organize-non-controller-logic/84407/6 "2006-03-21T16:23:36Z")
Personally, I’d say that looks like a model. You can just put it in your models directory, and use it from controllers the way you normally would. You’ll need to set up some mocks in order to unit test it, since most back-end systems like that don’t provide usable test regions. (At least not for the meaning of the word that OO programmers are comfortable with.) You can use the “model” and “service” controller class methods to make sure it gets ‘required’ in the appropriate place. ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-organize-non-controller-logic/84407/7 "2006-03-21T20:01:16Z")
> you could create modules and put them in the lib directory. It’s cleaner BUT it’s cached in development mode =\> if you change it, you need to restart the server. Alain ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-organize-non-controller-logic/84407/8 "2006-03-21T20:18:19Z")
I have a filename that is an attribute of one of my model objects. It references a file in the file system. I need to figure out if that file is an Excel file, a CSV file, or neither. Wes Jeremy H. wrote: > Can you give an example of business logic that doesn’t interact with a > model? > > On 3/20/06, Chris H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > > – > Jeremy H. > [http://www.jeremyhuffman.com](http://www.jeremyhuffman.com) ---
**Author:** ![weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ab992/32.png) [@weyus](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/weyus)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/best-way-to-organize-non-controller-logic/84407/9 "2006-03-28T14:16:39Z")
class MyObject \< ActiveRecord::Base … validates\_each :filename do |fname| unless [".xls", “.csv”].include?(fname.extname) model.errors.add(fname, “File does not appear to be an excel or csv file”) end end