Rails - Apr 2008 - Auditing: session[:user] reference in after_save callback

I know, it is against the MVC to speak directly to a session object in
the model but I am looking for a solution to this problem with auditing

I have a SystemLog model which works as a sort of auditor to track
changes. It has a user_id that references the user that initiated the
change and a text string with a description and some other columns.

Whenever I save a model, i want to create a SystemLog object with values
I can get from the model that is being saved itself, except for the
user_id.

How am I supposed to get the session[:user] data neatly to the model the
way Ruby wants it to? Or is there any other way to realise this auditing
process which I am overlooking?

The alternative violates the DRY philosophy. After every call to
@object.save in the controller I manually create a new SystemLog object
with the @object''s attributes and session[:user] variable.
-- 
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I''m probably mis-understanding the question, but is the problem you
want information about the user logged in?  Could you not do a Find on
the user table using the ID of the user saved in the [:session] ?

On Apr 23, 5:01 pm, Chris Dekker
<rails-mailing-l...-ARtvInVfO7ksV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> I know, it is against the MVC to speak directly to a session object in
> the model but I am looking for a solution to this problem with auditing
>
> I have a SystemLog model which works as a sort of auditor to track
> changes. It has a user_id that references the user that initiated the
> change and a text string with a description and some other columns.
>
> Whenever I save a model, i want to create a SystemLog object with values
> I can get from the model that is being saved itself, except for the
> user_id.
>
> How am I supposed to get the session[:user] data neatly to the model the
> way Ruby wants it to? Or is there any other way to realise this auditing
> process which I am overlooking?
>
> The alternative violates the DRY philosophy. After every call to
> @object.save in the controller I manually create a new SystemLog object
> with the @object''s attributes and session[:user] variable.
> --
> Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.
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Here''s a solution by Pratik, although I have the feeling that
he''s, err,
somehow opposed to it. Just a gut feeling :)

http://m.onkey.org/2007/10/17/how-to-access-session-cookies-params-request-in-model

Another solution mentioned in the first Rails Recipes book was to 
(mis)use ActionController::Caching::Sweeping; because of their task, 
Sweepers are observers that have access to the current controller. I 
have yet to use them, but this approach seems to be quite clean to me. 
Take a look at a comment by August Lilleaas in Pratiks article, he has 
some example code for this.

HTH.
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sw0rdfish wrote:
> I''m probably mis-understanding the question, but is the problem
you
> want information about the user logged in?  Could you not do a Find on
> the user table using the ID of the user saved in the [:session] ?
> 
> On Apr 23, 5:01�pm, Chris Dekker
<rails-mailing-l...-ARtvInVfO7ksV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org>
Thats the plan yeah. But the thing is I want need the logged in user 
(from the session in my MODEL, since this is the only place I can call 
my before_ and after_save functions.

So the hard part is getting the ID from the session to the Model, since 
this is not really Ruby''s way of doing it.
-- 
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Use an attr_accessor in your model.

attr_accessor :user_id
after_save :audit

def audit
  @systemlog = SystemLog.new
  @systemlog.user_id = self.user_id
end


On Apr 23, 6:01 pm, Chris Dekker
<rails-mailing-l...-ARtvInVfO7ksV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> sw0rdfish wrote:
> > I''m probably mis-understanding the question, but is the
problem you
> > want information about the user logged in?  Could you not do a Find on
> > the user table using the ID of the user saved in the [:session] ?
>
> > On Apr 23, 5:01�pm, Chris Dekker
<rails-mailing-l...@andreas-s.net>
>
> Thats the plan yeah. But the thing is I want need the logged in user
> (from the session in my MODEL, since this is the only place I can call
> my before_ and after_save functions.
>
> So the hard part is getting the ID from the session to the Model, since
> this is not really Ruby''s way of doing it.
> --
> Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.
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