Is there a shorter name for Rails find_or_initialize_by_this_that_and_theotherthing?

Question

I use the active record find_or_intialize (similar to find_or_create) in a few places, which leads to annoyingly long non-breakable method names. For example, "find_or_initialize_by_topic_id_and_publish_date_and_publist_id" really messes up my formatting. I know with the normal find method I can supply all this stuff as parameters. Is there a more readable version of this method?

Answer 1

You could implement missing method to parse the method name and reconstruct the long one from an abbreviated one:

finit_b_tid_n_pubdte_npubid(....)

You just have to establish what each shorthand between the underscores is:

def method_missing(id, *args)
  fields_in = id.split(/_/)
  fields_out = []
  fields.each do |f|
    case f
      when "finit"
        fields_out <<= "find_or initialize"
      when "b"
        fields_out <<= "by"
      when "n"
        fields_out <<= "and"
      when.....
         .....
    end 
  end
  send(fields_out.join("_"), args)
end

I didn't run this, but it should be enough to give you the idea.