Hi,

I Would like discuss what is the best pratice on update validations of an object, given the update of object depends on another object.

I have this classes.

class Book < ActiveRecord::Base

 belongs_to :author, :class_name => "User", :foreign_key => "author_id"

end

class User < ActiveRecord::Base

 has_many :books, :foreign_key => 'author_id'

end

The book author only can edit/destroy the book on the first 15 minutes.

How i would make this?

create two methods on Book: - one that checks if the book is editable (don't passed the 15 minutes) - one that check if the book is changeable by the user.

and i could make a validation call back before_update to check this conditions and generate the error messages.

But my doubt is on controller side.

How it would be the best way to do this?

I came in this solution:

class BooksController < ApplicationController

  before_filter :check_editability, :only => [:edit,:update]
  private
  def check_editability
     @book = Book.find(params[:id])
     @user = User.find(session[:user])
     if @book.editable?
       flash[:error] = "Time for delete exceeded!"
     end
     if @book.changeable_for?(@user)
       flash[:error] = "You don't have permission to do this."
     end
     unless flash[:error].empty?
       redirect_to(book_path(@book)) and return.
     end
  end

end

But i think is more clearer just one method like 'valid_for_update?(user)' that check these conditions and returns in form of Errors object.

What you guys think about it?

(Sorry if i ain't describe it clear enough, english is not my native language)