On 4/17/06, Francois Beausoleil <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm just wondering what your expectations would be if you saw that code: > > def edit > @contact = Contact.find(params[:id]) > @contact.phone.attributes = params[:phone] > return if @contact.update_attributes(params[:contact]) > # handle validation errors > end > > What do you expect the phones table to contain: the old values or the > new values ?
As Rick already said, AR currently requires you to save the individual AR instances. It would make sense to have the whole tree saved when you save the top-level object, otherwise you have to _know_ which objects are actually tied to database tables and which are just "normal" properties. If one of the purposes of an object-relational mapper is to let the developer concentrate on the application code rather than the database, this is one area where we lose that advantage. However, there are a few isues I can forsee if this was implimented. First there is the potential for huge SQL queries to be made unecessarily. It may also cause issues when the objects in the subtree are associated with more than one parent object. While these issues could be resolved, is it worth it to spend time on such things? I, for one, would trade being able to save the whole tree with one call to save for the other (probably more useful and time-saving) improvements to AR that would likely get dsplaced in order to impliment this. Besides, if you really need this on a specific set of model classes, it's possible to impliment the behavior using the callbacks; and the risks I mentioned would at least be localized to that one specific hierarchy. -- Regards, John Wilger http://johnwilger.com ----------- Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat. "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter." - Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland
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