#165 Edit Multiple (revised)

Why did he make it a "collection type route" in the first rewrite of the edits (at 1:52 of the video)?

resources :products do
  collection do
    put :discontinue
  end
end

i.e. did he have to do it that way? What would be alternative ways to do it? why is this way better? Thanks if you can help.

Agree or disagree.

Putting an edit form on an index page (as he does in the video) kind of makes Rails work like a javascript single page app. It seems to load and present the updates much faster, in addition to not having to redirect to a different page

Great episode, again :)

Oh by the way, is it my imagination or is there absolutely no flashing when you click "discontinue checked" in solution 1? I always get flashing when I do this stuff - unless I am using ajax-y logic. Anyone?

In Rails 4, this:

Product.update_all({discontinued: true}, {id: params[:product_ids]})

should be:

Product.where(id: params[:product_ids]).update_all(discontinued: true)

I find the way validation errors are displayed in the third solution a bit odd. The validation error is always the same for each product, isn't it? Might as well display it only once then. Or am I missing something here?

I have a version of this that re-uses the form partial and avoids letting you edit fields that require unique values automatically:

https://github.com/spilth/rails-mass-update-test/blob/master/app/form_builders/mass_form_builder.rb

And

https://github.com/spilth/rails-mass-update-test/blob/master/app/views/books/mass_edit.html.erb

I have a feeling such operations should be refactored into a separate model (e.g. BulkProductsUpdater), this has several advantages:

1. You won't need any non-REST actions for this new object
2. You can utilize handy rails validations/callbacks
3. All the business logic related to updating the Product fields will be contained in the model layer, as it should be
4. Generally testing separate models is easier and less brittle than testing controller logic

I have the same scenarios with many to many categories. I have found difficulty with update method on product. Any ideas to help?

Is there any way to update attributes for miltiple objects with nested form?

I used this code in controller:

@works = Work.find(params[:work_ids])
@works.reject! do |work|
   work.update_attributes!(params[:work])
end

if @works.empty?
   redirect_to contracts_path
else
   render :edit_multiple
end

It is similar to example

But instead of updating the records, Ruby creates new ones and nullifies "work_id" in existing records.

mysql> SELECT * FROM work_comments;
+----+---------+-------------+
| id | work_id | content |
+----+---------+-------------+
| 1 | NULL | comment |
| 2 | NULL | comment |
| 3 | NULL | comment |
| 4 | 1 | new comment |
| 5 | 2 | new comment |
| 6 | 3 | new comment |
+----+---------+-------------+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

What could cause this problem? Thank you!