Module: ActiveFedora::AutosaveAssociation

Extended by:
ActiveSupport::Concern
Included in:
Base
Defined in:
lib/active_fedora/autosave_association.rb

Overview

Active Fedora Autosave Association

AutosaveAssociation is a module that takes care of automatically saving associacted records when their parent is saved. In addition to saving, it also destroys any associated records that were marked for destruction. (See mark_for_destruction and marked_for_destruction?).

Saving of the parent, its associations, and the destruction of marked associations, all happen inside a transaction. This should never leave the database in an inconsistent state.

If validations for any of the associations fail, their error messages will be applied to the parent.

Note that it also means that associations marked for destruction won’t be destroyed directly. They will however still be marked for destruction.

Note that :autosave => false is not same as not declaring :autosave. When the :autosave option is not present new associations are saved.

One-to-many Example

When :autosave is not declared new children are saved when their parent is saved:

class Post
  has_many :comments # :autosave option is no declared
end

post = Post.new(:title => 'ruby rocks')
post.comments.build(:body => 'hello world')
post.save # => saves both post and comment

post = Post.create(:title => 'ruby rocks')
post.comments.build(:body => 'hello world')
post.save # => saves both post and comment

post = Post.create(:title => 'ruby rocks')
post.comments.create(:body => 'hello world')
post.save # => saves both post and comment

When :autosave is true all children is saved, no matter whether they are new records:

class Post
  has_many :comments, :autosave => true
end

post = Post.create(:title => 'ruby rocks')
post.comments.create(:body => 'hello world')
post.comments[0].body = 'hi everyone'
post.save # => saves both post and comment, with 'hi everyone' as body

Destroying one of the associated models as part of the parent’s save action is as simple as marking it for destruction:

post.comments.last.mark_for_destruction
post.comments.last.marked_for_destruction? # => true
post.comments.length # => 2

Note that the model is not yet removed from the database:

id = post.comments.last.id
Comment.find_by_id(id).nil? # => false

post.save
post.reload.comments.length # => 1

Now it is removed from the database:

Comment.find_by_id(id).nil? # => true

Validation

Children records are validated unless :validate is false.

Defined Under Namespace

Modules: AssociationBuilderExtension, ClassMethods

Constant Summary collapse

ASSOCIATION_TYPES = 
[:has_many, :belongs_to, :has_and_belongs_to_many, :directly_contains, :indirectly_contains, :is_a_container].freeze

Instance Method Summary collapse

Instance Method Details

#changed_for_autosave? ⇒ Boolean

Returns whether or not this record has been changed in any way (including whether any of its nested autosave associations are likewise changed)

Returns:

  • (Boolean) 


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# File 'lib/active_fedora/autosave_association.rb', line 191

def changed_for_autosave?
  new_record? || changed? || marked_for_destruction? || nested_records_changed_for_autosave?
end

#destroyed_by_association ⇒ Object

Returns the association for the parent being destroyed.

Used to avoid updating the counter cache unnecessarily.



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# File 'lib/active_fedora/autosave_association.rb', line 185

def destroyed_by_association
  @destroyed_by_association
end

#destroyed_by_association=(reflection) ⇒ Object

Records the association that is being destroyed and destroying this record in the process.



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# File 'lib/active_fedora/autosave_association.rb', line 178

def destroyed_by_association=(reflection)
  @destroyed_by_association = reflection
end

#mark_for_destruction ⇒ Object

Marks this record to be destroyed as part of the parents save transaction. This does not actually destroy the record instantly, rather child record will be destroyed when parent.save is called.

Only useful if the :autosave option on the parent is enabled for this associated model.



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# File 'lib/active_fedora/autosave_association.rb', line 165

def mark_for_destruction
  @marked_for_destruction = true
end

#marked_for_destruction? ⇒ Boolean

Returns whether or not this record will be destroyed as part of the parents save transaction.

Only useful if the :autosave option on the parent is enabled for this associated model.

Returns:

  • (Boolean) 


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# File 'lib/active_fedora/autosave_association.rb', line 172

def marked_for_destruction?
  @marked_for_destruction
end

#reload ⇒ Object

Reloads the attributes of the object as usual and clears marked_for_destruction flag.



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# File 'lib/active_fedora/autosave_association.rb', line 154

def reload
  @marked_for_destruction = false
  @destroyed_by_association = nil
  super
end