Rails - Issue with controllers for creating a user group - mysql

Question

I currently have a Rails app that allows users to create a group and allows other users to join the group. The group "creator" is the owner of the group and any that join ON REQUEST are the members. I want a user to be able to create only one group, but belong to many (I think that I've captured that relationship, but I'm a little uncertain). I need a little help understanding what I need to do to show the group associations on the User's page. How should I go about creating a group "show" page and how do I show the group memberships on the User "show" page? I got help from SO and followed the Railscast on self-referential association to help guide me through setting up the relationships.
In this example groups are called Cliqs and membership is controlled by a has_many :through. I used Devise for the User model.
To clarify my question: Am I capturing the relationship that I'm trying to set up? How would I go about allowing the user to view groups that they belong to?
As an aside, I'm not sure if the group creator is being associated as a member of the group. How do I represent that in my model/controller?
Here is my code:
Group Model:
class Cliq < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :owner, class_name: 'User'
has_many :members, through: :cliq_memberships, source: :user
has_many :cliq_memberships
end
Membership Model:
class CliqMembership < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :cliq
belongs_to :user
end
User Model:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :owned_group, foreign_key: 'owner_id', class_name: 'Group'
has_many :cliqs, through: :cliq_memberships
has_many :cliq_memberships
.
.
.
end
Group Controller:
class CliqsController < ApplicationController
def show
#cliq = Cliq.find(params[:id])
end
def new
#cliq = Cliq.new(params[:id])
end
def create
#cliq = Cliq.create(cliq_params)
if #cliq.save
redirect_to current_user
else
redirect_to new_cliq_path
end
end
def destroy
end
def cliq_params
params.require(:cliq).permit(:name, :cliq_id)
end
end
Group Membership Controller:
class CliqMembershipsController < ApplicationController
def create
#cliq = cliq.find(params[:cliq_id])
if #cliq_membership.save = current_user.cliq_memberships.build(:cliq_id => params[:cliq_id])
flash[:notice] = "Joined #{#cliq.name}"
else
#Set up multiple error message handler for rejections/already a member
flash[:notice] = "Not able to join Cliq."
end
redirect_to cliq_url
end
def destroy
#cliq = Cliq.find(params[:id])
#cliq_memberships = current_user.cliq_memberships.find(params[cliq_memberships: :cliq_id]).destroy
redirect_to user_path(current_user)
end
end
And my User Show Page:
<h1> <%= #user.username %> </h1>
<h2>Cliqs</h2>
<%= link_to "Create Cliq", new_cliq_path %>
<ul>
<% for cliq_membership in #user.cliq_memberships %>
<li>
<%= cliq_membership.cliq.name %>
(<%= link_to "Leave Cliq", cliq_membership, :method => :delete %>)
</li>
<% end %>
</ul>
<h3>Title:</h3>
<% #uploads.each do |upload| %>
<div>
<%= link_to upload.title, upload_url %>
</div>
<% end %>
And my Migrations:
Cliq:
class CreateCliqs < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
create_table :cliqs do |t|
t.string :name
t.references :owner
t.integer :cliq_id
t.timestamps null: false
end
end
end
CliqMemberships:
class CreateCliqMemberships < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
create_table :cliq_memberships do |t|
t.references :user
t.references :cliq
t.timestamps null: false
end
end
end
FULL SOLUTION OF WHAT WORKED BELOW.

Answer 1

Try the following:
Your revised models. Fixed the following issues:
In User model, for has_one :owned_group, you set class_name as Group instead of Cliq.
Declare has_many before has_many :through. It may work otherwise, but it is a good practice and easy for readability.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :owned_group, foreign_key: 'owner_id', class_name: 'Cliq'
has_many :cliq_memberships
has_many :cliqs, through: :cliq_memberships
end
class CliqMembership < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :cliq
belongs_to :user
end
class Cliq < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :owner, class_name: 'User'
has_many :cliq_memberships
has_many :members, through: :cliq_memberships, source: :user
end
Your revised controllers. Fixed the following issues:
In the CliqsController, as it is relates to Cliq, you won't get cliq_id while creating it. So removed the cliq_id from the cliq_params. You could add other cliq related attributes in there.
In create, you forgot to assign the current_user as the owner of the cliq. This is addressed by the next note.
As the user is the owner of the cliq, built the cliq using build_owned_group which automatically sets the current_user as the owner.
Try not to do multiple things in the same statement. Like assigning it to a variable as well as doing some operation on the newly assigned variable. For example: In create action of CliqMembershipsController, you were assigning the #cliq_membership as well as calling save on it. Separated those two into two steps.
In destroy of CliqMembershipsController, there is no need to load the #cliq and also fixed the way you are finding the #cliq_membership.
class CliqsController < ApplicationController
def show
#cliq = Cliq.find(params[:id])
end
def new
#cliq = Cliq.new(params[:id])
end
def create
#cliq = current_user.build_owned_group(cliq_params)
if #cliq.save
redirect_to current_user
else
redirect_to new_cliq_path
end
end
private
def cliq_params
params.require(:cliq).permit(:name)
end
end
class CliqMembershipsController < ApplicationController
def create
#cliq = Cliq.find(params[:cliq_id])
#cliq_membership = current_user.cliq_memberships.build(cliq: #cliq)
if #cliq_membership.save
flash[:notice] = "Joined #{#cliq.name}"
else
#Set up multiple error message handler for rejections/already a member
flash[:notice] = "Not able to join Cliq."
redirect_to cliq_url
end
def destroy
#cliq_membership = current_user.cliq_memberships.find(params[:id])
if #cliq_membership.destroy
redirect_to user_path(current_user)
end
end
end
And finally your revised view:
Fixed few things.
Try to use each on the collection to iteration through. This is more ruby way, instead of for loop.
Based on your CliqMemberhipsController code, I assumed you are using nested resources as below. So fixed the link_to to use cliq_cliq_memberhip_path instead of cliq_membership_path.
<h1><%= #user.username %></h1>
<h2>Cliqs</h2>
<%= link_to "Create Cliq", new_cliq_path %>
<ul>
<% #user.cliq_memberships.each do |cliq_membership| %>
<li><%= cliq_membership.cliq.name %>(<%= link_to "Leave Cliq", cliq_cliq_membership_path([cliq, cliq_membership]), method: :delete %>)</li>
<% end %>
</ul>
This assumes you have a routes file with the following:
resources :cliqs do
resources :cliq_memberships
end

Answer 2

Going along the lines of my comment above it seems to me the best thing to do is implement some kind of role attribute in the bridge table.
The Rails docs say this:
You should use has_many :through if you need validations, callbacks, or extra attributes on the join model.
So you might try this in your models:
class Cliq < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :cliq_memberships
has_many :members, through: :cliq_memberships
def owner
cliq_memberships.where(role: 'owner').user
end
end
# this model is used to access attributes on the bridge table
class CliqMembership < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :cliq
belongs_to :user
attr_accessor :role
end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :cliq_memberships
has_many :cliqs, through: :cliq_memberships
# something like this would make it easy to grab the owned cliq
def ownedCliq
cliq_memberships.where(role: 'owner').cliq
end
end
so the bridge table stores role which would be an enum or a string representing 'member', 'owner', and maybe 'admin' or something.
Some example usage:
# say I have a user
u = User.find(1)
# and I want the cliq that he/she owns
owned_cliq = u.ownedCliq
# maybe I have a group:
g = Cliq.find(1)
# and I want the user that owns it:
my_owner = g.owner
# now let's get all the members of the cliq (including the 'owner')
my_members = g.members
More example usage:
# inside the controller...
# say I have a user:
u = User.find(1)
# this user is trying to create a cliq
# pretend we fill it in with its data here...
c = Cliq.new
c.save!
# we'll need to hook the two together:
cm = CliqMembership.new(role: 'owner', user_id: u.id, cliq_id: c.id)
cm.save!
# or we might try something like this:
#cm = CliqMembership.find_or_create_by #...
Also, I found this SO answer which does a good job of explaining things.

Answer 3

So I started with the code in my question above and then worked inward to my answer (through many additional trials). This may help someone in the future so here is what worked. (Taking advice from both answers):
class Cliq < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :owner, class_name: 'User'
has_many :cliq_memberships
has_many :members, through: :cliq_memberships, source: :user
end
class CliqMembership < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :cliq
belongs_to :user
end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :owned_cliq, foreign_key: 'owner_id', class_name: 'Cliq'
has_many :cliq_memberships
has_many :cliqs, through: :cliq_memberships
.
.
.
end
class CliqsController < ApplicationController
def show
#cliq = Cliq.find(params[:id])
end
def new
#cliq = Cliq.new(params[:id])
end
def create
#cliq = current_user.build_owned_cliq(cliq_params)
#cliq.members << current_user
if #cliq.save
redirect_to current_user
else
redirect_to new_cliq_path
end
end
def destroy
end
def cliq_params
params.require(:cliq).permit(:name, :cliq_id)
end
end
class UsersController < ApplicationController
def show
#find way to use username instead of id (vanity url?)
#user = User.find(params[:id])
#uploads = Upload.all
#cliq_memberships = CliqMembership.all
#cliqs = Cliq.all
end
end
class CliqMembershipsController < ApplicationController
def show
end
def create
#cliq = Cliq.find(params[:cliq_id])
#cliq_membership = current_user.cliq_memberships.build(cliq: #cliq)
if #cliq_membership.save
flash[:notice] = "Joined #{#cliq.name}"
else
#Set up multiple error message handler for rejections/already a member
flash[:notice] = "Not able to join Cliq."
end
redirect_to cliq_url
end
def destroy
#cliq_membership = current_user.cliq_membership.find(params[:id])
if #cliq_membership.destroy
redirect_to user_path(current_user)
end
end
class CreateCliqs < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
create_table :cliqs do |t|
t.string :name
t.references :owner
t.timestamps null: false
end
end
end
class CreateCliqMemberships < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
create_table :cliq_memberships do |t|
t.references :user
t.references :cliq
t.timestamps null: false
end
end
end
Thanks so much for all of the incredible help on this thread!