Checking custom URLs and user IDs

Question

Is there a better way to do this? I'm kinda ending up having a lot of if statements.

if params[:custom_url] || params[:user_id]
 if !params[:user_id].blank?
 @user = User.find(params[:user_id]).first
 @url = @user.custom_url
 else
 @url = params[:custom_url]
 @user = User.where(:custom_url => @url).first
 end
end

• rubiii: instead of !params[:user_id].blank?, you can write params[:user_id].present? which reads more nicely.

Answer 1

I typically chain scopes together like this:

Model:

def self.by_user_and_url(user_id, custom_url)
 by_user(user_id).by_custom_url(custom_url)
end
def self.by_user(user_id)
 user_id ? where(user_id: user_id) : scoped
end
def self.by_custom_url(custom_url)
 custom_url ? where(custom_url: custom_url) : scoped
end

Controller:

if params[:custom_url].present? || params[:user_id].present?
 @user = User.by_user_and_url(params[:user_id], params[:custom_url]).first
end

I'm not sure why you had two instance variables. The url can be pulled from the @user instance variable if you need it in your view.

Answer 2

Not a big fan of case..when:

@user = User.find_first(params[:user_id]) if params[:user_id]
@user ||= User.find_by_custom_url(@url)
@url = params[:custom_url] || @user.custom_url

• Pavling: At line 2, @url is going to be nil, so there's no sense using it as a param.
• deiga: Line 1, wouldn't it be better to use if params[:user_id].present?