The Great Mochini wrote:> I think this may actually be an object oriented programming question. > Not only am I new to Ruby and Rails, but I''m also coming from a > functional PHP background, so this whole OO approach to web programming > is new to me. > > I have a three page registration form and I am trying to determine best > practices for managing the data across forms in a session. I would > like each form to validate before passing the user along to the next > page. The data will be ultimately be distributed across 6 different > tables, so the validation criteria for the registration form is spread > accross the 6 repective model objects. > > My thought is to create a non-ActiveRecord model called "Registration" > and have it create the various model objects as instance variables upon > instantiation: > > class Registration > def initialize > @member = Member.new > @membership = Membership.new > @donations = Donation.new > ... > end > end > > and then save this in this object in the session. When I need to > validate the form data, I could do something like this in the > registration controller: > > @registration = session[:registration] ||= Registration.new > @member = @registration.member > @member.attributes = params[:member] > redirect_to :action => ''next_page'' if @member.valid? > > That way, I can still use the model (and ActiveRecord) to handle the > nitty gritty of form validation and I only need to manage one object in > the session. Also, if I have a form with data that belongs in three > seperate models how do I validate that data across the various models? > My guess is to add something like this in my registration model: > > def valid? > @member.valid? > @membership.valid? > @donation.valid? > @errors > @member.errors.merge(@membership.errors).merge(@donation.errors) > end > > And then this in the view > > <%= error_messages_for ''registration'' %> > > Does that look right? I''d like to know if these are common best > practices for handling multipage forms in Rails and if not, how do the > rest of you do it? > > Thanks, > GregGreg, have you tried this? If so, what were your results? I''m struggling with the same concept here -- coming from a coldfusion background. It''s not difficult to save various objects (or one master object in your case) to the session and manipulate that data, but it''s considerably more difficult to get the framework validation working on multiple models accross multiple forms and properly display the errors, and properly handle the form redirects/resubmits as necessary. I''m amazed that there aren''t tons of examples of this sort of thing floating around -- it''s such a basic web application thing, but so far I''ve found almost nothing on it. One link that was somewhat helpful is here: http://www.nabble.com/Validating-two-models-from-one-form-t1421132.html I''m looking at finishing a simple shopping cart checkout, with forms in this order: Customer info -> credit card info (with payment amount in this form). My db tables/models are "order" (contains customer info), "credit_card" and "payment", one-to-many between each going left to right. First I save the customer info into the session (session[:order]), and proceed to the credit_card / payment amount form. When that is submitted, I pull the order (customer info) out of the session, push the payment into the credit card (@credit_card.payments << @payment), push the credit card into the order (@order.credit_cards << @credit_card), and save the @order. The save works fine, but getting it to validate properly has been a nightmare. Anyway, I''m very curious to see responses to this post as I think for seasoned web deveopers moving to RoR, this *must* be a very common issue. Come on, Rails gurus! help us out! Surely there are some common practices used in Rails for this sort of thing?? -KG -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
There is one very important issue to keep in mind here: ActiveRecord models aren''t fully serializable. This means that you can''t create a model and throw it into the session without saving, as you will lose the data and the app will probably crash. I recently had to deal with this same situation (model information over like 6 pages) and it took us a while to figure out a good solution. Unfortunately the best solution was keeping our own hash in the session and only when we are done collecting all of the data do we pull those values into a new model for validation and saving. If you are ok saving a partially complete AR object, then you''re fine using the session (for note, only the ID is guarenteed to be saved, AR repolls from the database when needed). Hope that helps. Just remember that even though placing unsaved AR objects in the session may be working for you, there is no guarentee that it will work anywhere else. Jason On 8/29/06, KG <rails-mailing-list-ARtvInVfO7ksV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org> wrote:> > > The Great Mochini wrote: > > I think this may actually be an object oriented programming question. > > Not only am I new to Ruby and Rails, but I''m also coming from a > > functional PHP background, so this whole OO approach to web programming > > is new to me. > > > > I have a three page registration form and I am trying to determine best > > practices for managing the data across forms in a session. I would > > like each form to validate before passing the user along to the next > > page. The data will be ultimately be distributed across 6 different > > tables, so the validation criteria for the registration form is spread > > accross the 6 repective model objects. > > > > My thought is to create a non-ActiveRecord model called "Registration" > > and have it create the various model objects as instance variables upon > > instantiation: > > > > class Registration > > def initialize > > @member = Member.new > > @membership = Membership.new > > @donations = Donation.new > > ... > > end > > end > > > > and then save this in this object in the session. When I need to > > validate the form data, I could do something like this in the > > registration controller: > > > > @registration = session[:registration] ||= Registration.new > > @member = @registration.member > > @member.attributes = params[:member] > > redirect_to :action => ''next_page'' if @member.valid? > > > > That way, I can still use the model (and ActiveRecord) to handle the > > nitty gritty of form validation and I only need to manage one object in > > the session. Also, if I have a form with data that belongs in three > > seperate models how do I validate that data across the various models? > > My guess is to add something like this in my registration model: > > > > def valid? > > @member.valid? > > @membership.valid? > > @donation.valid? > > @errors > > @member.errors.merge(@membership.errors).merge(@donation.errors) > > end > > > > And then this in the view > > > > <%= error_messages_for ''registration'' %> > > > > Does that look right? I''d like to know if these are common best > > practices for handling multipage forms in Rails and if not, how do the > > rest of you do it? > > > > Thanks, > > Greg > > Greg, have you tried this? If so, what were your results? > > I''m struggling with the same concept here -- coming from a coldfusion > background. It''s not difficult to save various objects (or one master > object in your case) to the session and manipulate that data, but it''s > considerably more difficult to get the framework validation working on > multiple models accross multiple forms and properly display the errors, > and properly handle the form redirects/resubmits as necessary. I''m > amazed that there aren''t tons of examples of this sort of thing floating > around -- it''s such a basic web application thing, but so far I''ve found > almost nothing on it. One link that was somewhat helpful is here: > http://www.nabble.com/Validating-two-models-from-one-form-t1421132.html > > I''m looking at finishing a simple shopping cart checkout, with forms in > this order: Customer info -> credit card info (with payment amount in > this form). My db tables/models are "order" (contains customer info), > "credit_card" and "payment", one-to-many between each going left to > right. > > First I save the customer info into the session (session[:order]), and > proceed to the credit_card / payment amount form. When that is > submitted, I pull the order (customer info) out of the session, push the > payment into the credit card (@credit_card.payments << @payment), push > the credit card into the order (@order.credit_cards << @credit_card), > and save the @order. The save works fine, but getting it to validate > properly has been a nightmare. > > Anyway, I''m very curious to see responses to this post as I think for > seasoned web deveopers moving to RoR, this *must* be a very common > issue. Come on, Rails gurus! help us out! Surely there are some common > practices used in Rails for this sort of thing?? > > -KG > > -- > Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. > > > >--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
I try to avoid using the session as much as possible for these. Your forms are bound to models with validation, so just let them do the work for you. You can do all sorts of cool things to avoid validating fields until you need to. I don''t think there''s any reason to make your own model that you''ll store in session just to wrap existing models. Use them as they are and save the records. If, for some reason, you don''t want to save the record (incomplete transaction, etc) you could just store the object directly to the session and only save it upon completion. However, for a shopping cart, there''s actually some value in saving as they go becuase you''d have some data you could look at to help find out why people left your store in the middle of a transaction. Just add an additional status field to your table... 0 for default, 1 for submitted, 2 for in process, 3 for fulfillment, 4 for complete, 5 for cancelled.. etc This is just off the top of my head though. There are lots of ways to do this. On 8/29/06, KG <rails-mailing-list-ARtvInVfO7ksV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org> wrote:> > > The Great Mochini wrote: > > I think this may actually be an object oriented programming question. > > Not only am I new to Ruby and Rails, but I''m also coming from a > > functional PHP background, so this whole OO approach to web programming > > is new to me. > > > > I have a three page registration form and I am trying to determine best > > practices for managing the data across forms in a session. I would > > like each form to validate before passing the user along to the next > > page. The data will be ultimately be distributed across 6 different > > tables, so the validation criteria for the registration form is spread > > accross the 6 repective model objects. > > > > My thought is to create a non-ActiveRecord model called "Registration" > > and have it create the various model objects as instance variables upon > > instantiation: > > > > class Registration > > def initialize > > @member = Member.new > > @membership = Membership.new > > @donations = Donation.new > > ... > > end > > end > > > > and then save this in this object in the session. When I need to > > validate the form data, I could do something like this in the > > registration controller: > > > > @registration = session[:registration] ||= Registration.new > > @member = @registration.member > > @member.attributes = params[:member] > > redirect_to :action => ''next_page'' if @member.valid? > > > > That way, I can still use the model (and ActiveRecord) to handle the > > nitty gritty of form validation and I only need to manage one object in > > the session. Also, if I have a form with data that belongs in three > > seperate models how do I validate that data across the various models? > > My guess is to add something like this in my registration model: > > > > def valid? > > @member.valid? > > @membership.valid? > > @donation.valid? > > @errors > > @member.errors.merge(@membership.errors).merge(@donation.errors) > > end > > > > And then this in the view > > > > <%= error_messages_for ''registration'' %> > > > > Does that look right? I''d like to know if these are common best > > practices for handling multipage forms in Rails and if not, how do the > > rest of you do it? > > > > Thanks, > > Greg > > Greg, have you tried this? If so, what were your results? > > I''m struggling with the same concept here -- coming from a coldfusion > background. It''s not difficult to save various objects (or one master > object in your case) to the session and manipulate that data, but it''s > considerably more difficult to get the framework validation working on > multiple models accross multiple forms and properly display the errors, > and properly handle the form redirects/resubmits as necessary. I''m > amazed that there aren''t tons of examples of this sort of thing floating > around -- it''s such a basic web application thing, but so far I''ve found > almost nothing on it. One link that was somewhat helpful is here: > http://www.nabble.com/Validating-two-models-from-one-form-t1421132.html > > I''m looking at finishing a simple shopping cart checkout, with forms in > this order: Customer info -> credit card info (with payment amount in > this form). My db tables/models are "order" (contains customer info), > "credit_card" and "payment", one-to-many between each going left to > right. > > First I save the customer info into the session (session[:order]), and > proceed to the credit_card / payment amount form. When that is > submitted, I pull the order (customer info) out of the session, push the > payment into the credit card (@credit_card.payments << @payment), push > the credit card into the order (@order.credit_cards << @credit_card), > and save the @order. The save works fine, but getting it to validate > properly has been a nightmare. > > Anyway, I''m very curious to see responses to this post as I think for > seasoned web deveopers moving to RoR, this *must* be a very common > issue. Come on, Rails gurus! help us out! Surely there are some common > practices used in Rails for this sort of thing?? > > -KG > > -- > Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. > > > >--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---