Rails model for publishable posts

Question

I'm trying to dry up this Rails post model:

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
 extend FriendlyId
 friendly_id :title, use: [:slugged, :finders]
 validates_presence_of :title
 scope :published, -> { where('hidden = ? AND published_at IS NOT NULL AND published_at < ?', false, DateTime.now).order(published_at: :desc) }
 paginates_per 10
 attr_accessor :published_at_date, :published_at_time
 acts_as_taggable
 mount_uploader :image, ImageUploader
 after_initialize :set_default_values, :if => :new_record?
 def set_default_values
 self.ad ||= false
 end
 def published?
 if self.hidden == true || self.published_at.blank?
 false
 else
 self.published_at < DateTime.now ? true : false
 end
 end
 def not_published?
 if self.hidden == true || self.published_at.blank?
 true
 else
 self.published_at < DateTime.now ? false : true
 end
 end
 def can_publish?
 !published_at.blank? && hidden?
 end
end

The first thing I am removing is the default value section as that can be changed to a database default to set the initial value of the ad attribute to false each time.

after_initialize :set_default_values, :if => :new_record?
def set_default_values
 self.ad ||= false
end

The next part I am struggling with is the published? and not_published? methods. They should return a boolean value. In trying to try up the published? by removing self and the hidden = true for hidden?. In the else part of the conditional, I remove the ? true : false as the evaluation of the published_at < DateTime.now will return boolean from the method.

def published?
 if hidden? || published_at.blank?
 false
 else
 published_at < DateTime.now
 end
end

The not_published? method follows the same, but flipping the greater than sign to >:

 def not_published?
 if hidden? || published_at.blank?
 true
 else
 published_at > DateTime.now
 end
end

Then I realized that I could just call published? with a not !... duh.

def not_published?
 !published?
end

It is starting to look pretty good but I'd like to reduce it further. How can I reduce the published? method such that it does not need to the false ?

Answer 1

You could just do:

def published?
 !hidden? && published_at.present? && published_at < DateTime.now
end

However I would probably define something like:

def visible?
 !hidden?
end

or possible even

def visible?
 !hidden? && published_at.present?
end

And then

def published?
 visible? && published_at < DateTime.now
end

• DogEatDog: Thanks, I like the visible? as a better option of !hidden. I'll add that as well.