Rails - Saving in a table and update/creating in another one - sql

Question

I am creating a small app to manage my own online portfolio but I can't solve an issue with update.
The main table of my database is works, then there's the tables authors and clients where I set the fields authorName and clientName as unique. Authors and clients can have multiple works, but a work can only have one of each.
In the form where I create works I have a field for the authorName and another one for clientName: if the author doesn't exist in the authors table it gets created, otherwise the existing one gets linked to the work. Same thing with the client. To achieve this I am using first_or_initialize and it works perfectly. Problems start when I try to use the same method inside the update action. These are my models:
Work Model
class Work < ApplicationRecord
has_one :description
belongs_to :author
belongs_to :client
accepts_nested_attributes_for :client
accepts_nested_attributes_for :author
scope :active, lambda {where(:isActive => true)}
scope :descOrder, lambda {order(:date => :desc)}
scope :cover, lambda {where(:isCover => true)}
end
Author Model
class Author < ApplicationRecord
has_many :works
end
Client Model
class Client < ApplicationRecord
has_many :works
end
Quick edit: the models as you see them are exactly as they are in my app. No code has been removed.
This is the form in my view:
<%= form_for(#work, :url => { :controller => "projects", :action => "update"} ) do |f| %>
<%= f.label("title") %>
<%= f.text_field(:title) %>
<%= f.fields_for(:author) do |author| %>
<%= author.label("author") %>
<%= author.text_field(:authorName) %>
<% end %>
<%= f.fields_for(:client) do |client| %>
<%= client.label("client") %>
<%= client.text_field(:clientName) %>
<% end %>
<%= f.label("date") %>
<%= f.date_field(:date) %>
<%= f.submit("update") %>
<% end %>
And this is how I am handling it in the controller:
def edit
#work = Work.find(params[:id])
if #work.client.nil?
#work.build_client
end
if #work.author.nil?
#work.build_author
end
end
def update
#work = Work.find(params[:id])
#work.client = Client.where(clientName: work_params["client_attributes"]["clientName"]).first_or_initialize
#work.author = Author.where(authorName: work_params["author_attributes"]["authorName"]).first_or_initialize
if #work.update(work_params)
flash[:notice] = "work: #{#work.title} updated successfully."
redirect_to(project_path(#work))
else
redirect_to new_project_path
end
end
private
def work_params
params.require(:work).permit(:title, :date, client_attributes: [:id, :clientName], author_attributes: [:id, :authorName])
end
This is the error that I get:
Started PATCH "/projects/21" for ::1 at 2019-10-14 20:00:27 -0700
Processing by ProjectsController#update as HTML
Parameters: {"authenticity_token"=>"rw3X7VJg8CDnOibniv1jKHTVTGp7pjE4ep6xHpHy0Zp8Xv/0uQd6y5xqq629M2FOOQNoYyOAXH//w5/VoeNEOA==", "work"=>{"title"=>"Progetto1", "author_attributes"=>{"authorName"=>"Autore1", "id"=>"34"}, "client_attributes"=>{"clientName"=>"Cliente4", "id"=>"30"}, "date"=>""}, "commit"=>"update", "id"=>"21"}
Work Load (0.7ms) SELECT `works`.* FROM `works` WHERE `works`.`id` = 21 LIMIT 1
↳ app/controllers/projects_controller.rb:42:in `update'
Client Load (0.6ms) SELECT `clients`.* FROM `clients` WHERE `clients`.`clientName` = 'Cliente4' ORDER BY `clients`.`id` ASC LIMIT 1
↳ app/controllers/projects_controller.rb:44:in `update'
Author Load (0.6ms) SELECT `authors`.* FROM `authors` WHERE `authors`.`authorName` = 'Autore1' ORDER BY `authors`.`id` ASC LIMIT 1
↳ app/controllers/projects_controller.rb:45:in `update'
Completed 404 Not Found in 15ms (ActiveRecord: 1.9ms | Allocations: 3805)
ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound (Couldn't find Client with ID=30 for Work with ID=21):
app/controllers/projects_controller.rb:47:in `update'
Even though those record do exist in the database (with those IDs that you see in the error) and their foreign keys are correctly stored in the works table (I checked in mysql).
What I am expecting to achieve is the same behaviour of the new action (that I described in the beginning of my post).
How can I solve this? Thank you!
Small update: if I change first_or_initialize with first_or_create it does create the author (or client), if not existing, but in the same time it still gives me the same error.

Answer 1

After dozens of tests I eventually came up with a sort of solution - it's not "elegant" and probably it's not the best, but at least it works without interruptions:
def edit
#work = Work.find(params[:id])
if #work.client.nil?
#work.build_client
end
if #work.author.nil?
#work.build_author
end
end
def update
#work = Work.find(params[:id])
#work.client = Client.where(clientName: work_params["client_attributes"]["clientName"]).first_or_create
#work.author = Author.where(authorName: work_params["author_attributes"]["authorName"]).first_or_create
if #work.update(update_params)
flash[:notice] = "work: #{#work.title} updated successfully."
redirect_to(project_path(#work))
else
redirect_to new_project_path
end
end
private
def work_params
params.require(:work).permit(:title, :date, client_attributes: [:id, :clientName], author_attributes: [:id, :authorName])
end
def update_params
params.require(:work).permit(:title, :date)
end
Being that first_or_initialize works smoothly with save method, but it gets stuck - at least in my code - with update, I replaced it with first_or_create.
This time, however, I am using another private method update_params which simply ignores :client_attributes and :authors_attributes.
This results in an Unpermitted parameters: :author_attributes, :client_attributes error, as expected, but at least everything goes through and gets updated.
Honestly I am not quite sure that I totally understood why it's working. But it does.
Anyway, if anyone have a better solution to this problem I am totally open to improve it.