(I posted this yesterday but it never showed up on the mailing
list… weird.)
I recently converted a habtm relationship into one using
has_many :through. Some of my old logic relied on the ability to use
the #<< operator to add items to the relationship and get them auto-
saved. I’m curious to know the best way to do the same operation with
the has_many :through configuration. I looked through the list
archives and didn’t find my answer.
Rather than post my own models and associations, it’s probably easier
to use the example that Josh S. came up with in this blog post
[1]. His example assumes many of these objects are already saved and
now need to be joined, so let’s change to the scenario where all 3
separate objects are NEWLY created, joined and saved.
Here’s how I think it would work. Please correct me where I’m wrong.
in some controller, assume a form is being passed in to fill out the
Technician and Skill objects
def add_technician_with_skills
@technician = Technician.new(params[:technician])
@skills = Skills.new(params[:skill])
begin
@technician.add_skills(@skills)
@technician.save!
rescue => err
# error handling
end
other processing
end
in technician.rb model
def add_skills(skills)
begin
cert = Certification.new(:technician => self,
:skill => skills,
# other fields…)
cert.save!
rescue => err
# error handling
end
end
Will this work? Do I also need to explicitly save @skills or will it
be auto-saved via the @technician.save! call? Is the cert.save! call
necessary?
How do I unwind the cert.save! call if @technician.save! fails?
Is there a better way to lay this out so #save failures can be backed
out?
Thanks for your help.
cr
[1] http://blog.hasmanythrough.com/articles/2006/04/17/join-models-
not-proxy-collections