Implicit Transactions and after_save callback

Rails
1

Hi group,

I have a Problem with ActiveRecord. I´m using SQL-Queries in the
after_save-Callbacks which assert, that the change in the db already
took place. But this is not the case, because we´re still in the
transaction.

As far as I know, there is no callback which is called AFTER a commit
although this i think this would be very attractive. What can I do
here?

Here is the Problem:
I have the class Event, Resources and ResourceUses. Think of them as
lessons (Events) and Teachers and Rooms (Resources).

class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :resource_uses, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :resources, :through => :resource_uses

validates_presence_of :date
validates_presence_of :from
validates_presence_of :to

The Class “ResourceUse” has to check for Collisions based on the time-
data of the associated events. So in the after_save Callback, I run a
SQL-Query (in an instance-method of ResourceUse) to check for
collisions.

Exactly: I have to do this for all ResourceUse-Instances which had
collisions with the event BEFORE the event saved.

How could this be solved, any hints?

Kim

http://rubyforge.org/projects/resman/

2

On 5/8/07, k9ert [email protected] wrote:

here?
validates_presence_of :from

How could this be solved, any hints?

I think the simplest solution is a lock on the resource while
preparing your reservation, e.g.:

Whatever.transaction do

issue “select for update”; grab an exclusive lock on this row

until end of transaction. any other tx trying to lock the same

row will have to wait until it’s released

resource = Resource.find(…, :lock => true)

check for collisions and schedule ResouceUse if there’s no conflict

end # commit, freeing the lock on resource

Just be aware of deadlock issues; you don’t want transactions to lock
multiple resources (if you must, make sure you always lock rows in the
same order – but do try to find something more general to grab a
single lock on).

I think you could also set a transaction isolation level that lets you
see uncommitted writes, create your reservation and then check for
conflicts before commiting. Doubt this will work on all DBs.

HTH,
Isak

3

Thanks for clearing this up for me. I don´t like the idea do do it
with locks, so I´ll try to do it with the low isolation level in
combination with optimistic locking.

Kim