Rails create create default database records

Question

In my application I have an accounts model:

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
 belongs_to :user
 has_many :invoices
end

The Account model belongs to the User model. After the user is created, some default accounts must be created:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
 has_many :accounts
 after_create do
 Account.create(name: "Repairs",user: self)
 Account.create(name: "Supplies", user: self)
 end
end

Invoices can then be assigned to one of these initial accounts:

class Invoice < ActiveRecord::Base
 belongs_to :accounts
end

Is this the proper way to to create the default accounts?

• 200_success: Explain what you mean by "default accounts"?
• James: I updated question.
• 200_success: It seems like an unusual thing to do, and it's still not very clear why you want to do this. And what do you really mean by "Foo" and "Bar"? We don't like it when foo/bar appear in Code Review questions, because it's a sure sign that you're hiding some information from us.
• James: I attempted to provide more information. Do you find this useful?

Answer 1

Yeah! you are on right path but we can improve it like :

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
 has_many :accounts
 after_save do
 self.accounts.create([{name: "Repairs"}, {name: "Supplies"}])
 end
end

Hopefully! This will help.

• Marc-Andre: Welcome to Code Review! Could you explain why this code is better ? Why use after_save instead of after_create ? We don't just post code here, we want to help the Op by explaining things!

Answer 2

Instead of an after_save callback, which only creates those records after saving the object, why not after_initialize (Reference):

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
 has_many :accounts
 after_initialize do
 unless persisted?
 accounts << Account.new(name: 'Repairs', user: self)
 accounts << Account.new(name: 'Supplies', user: self)
 end
 end
end

Now the moment you have a new User object, you have default accounts (though unpersisted):

@user = User.new
puts @user.accounts[0].name # echoes "Repairs"
puts @user.accounts[1].name # echoes "Supplies"

The new accounts will be saved upon saving the user object:

@user.save