Rails - Jun 2007 - overly complex controller?

Hi all. A simple app. Albums have songs. Songs have artists. Models
look like:

class Album < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :albumappearances
  has_many :songs, :through => :albumappearances

  validates_length_of :description, :minimum => 4
end

class Albumappearance < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :album
  belongs_to :song
end

class Song < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :albumappearances
  has_many :albums, :through => :albumappearances
  belongs_to :artist

  validates_length_of :name, :minimum => 4
end

class Artist < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :songs
  validates_length_of :name, :minimum => 6
end

# --------------
At album create or update, a user can enter a totally new artist/song
combination. If the artist or song don''t exist, they need to get
created.

So, for example, in my controller, i know I can have something like:
def update

  # figure out which album we''re talking about.
  @album = Album.find(params[:id])

  # set the album description the user entered
  @album.description = params[:album][:description]

  # we''ll need an artist.id later to associate with the song.
  # so start with artist.
  @artist = Artist.find(params[:artist][:name]) rescue nil

  # if no artist was found, we need to create one.
  if @artist == nil
    @artist = Artist.new(:name => params[:artist][:name])
    # try to save the artist. errors will be captured.
    @artist.save
  end

  @song = Song.find(params[:song][:name]) rescue nil

  # if we couldn''t find a song, we need to create one.
  if @song == nil
    @song = Song.new(:name => params[:song][:name])

    # see if there are any validation errors with the song
    @song.valid?

    # if there isn''t an artist and there are errors associated with
the artist...
    if @artist.errors && @artist.id = nil
      # don''t try to save the song since it won''t have an ID
to use
for artist
      # but do try to validate the song so we can tell the user about
the problem
      @song.valid?
    else
      # try to save the song
      @artist.songs << @song
    end
  end

  # now, work on the album.
  if @song.errors || @artist.errors
    # if there were errorsdon''t try to save the album, but validate to
show the user errors
    @album.valid?
    render :action => ''edit''
    # exit
  else
    # otherwise save the album.
    if @album.save
      flash[:notice] = ''album was successfully updated.''
      redirect_to :action => ''show'', :id => @album
    else
      render :action => ''edit''
    end
  end
end

# -----------------

Now, this seems to work, but it seems awfully verbose and un rails-
like. Should some of this get moved to the models? Am I missing
something obvious?


--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
To post to this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk-unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---