acts_as_commentable_with_threading gem is not working well when I use build_from helper in my Rails application.

Question

I'm using acts_as_commentable_with_threading gem with my Rails 4.0 application.

I have Notification controller:

class Notification < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_commentable
  # ......
end

Now using build_from to create a comment is not working:

>> n = Notification.last
  Notification Load (2.3ms)  SELECT "notifications".* FROM "notifications" ORDER BY "notifications"."id" DESC LIMIT 1
=> #<Notification id: 134, owner_id: 223, sender_id: 247, n_type: "SAVED_SEARCH", url: nil, content: "2219", read: false, created_at: "2015-01-02 19:52:54", updated_at: "2015-01-02 19:52:54", archived: false, short_url: "http://www.some_url.com">
>> u = User.last
  User Load (1.3ms)  SELECT "users".* FROM "users" ORDER BY "users"."id" DESC LIMIT 1
=> #<User id: 252, email: "[email protected]", encrypted_password: "$2a$1...", reset_password_token: nil, reset_password_sent_at: nil, remember_created_at: nil, sign_in_count: 0, current_sign_in_at: nil, last_sign_in_at: nil, current_sign_in_ip: nil, last_sign_in_ip: nil, first_name: "eqbalosss", last_name: nil, created_at: "2015-01-01 20:16:52", updated_at: "2015-01-01 20:16:52", provider: nil, uid: nil>
>> Comment.build_from(n, u.id, "test")
=> #<Comment id: nil, commentable_id: 134, commentable_type: "Notification", title: nil, body: "test", subject: nil, user_id: 252, parent_id: nil, lft: nil, rgt: nil, created_at: nil, updated_at: nil>
>> Comment.count
   (1.0ms)  SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "comments"
=> 0

I checked out the documentation and I have no clue what am I doing wrong? do I still have association between Comment and Notification? I assume that the gem would do that already.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

When you use build_from when are not actually saving the comment into the database; instead you're just building it based on your User model.

So, when you perform Comment.count you're querying your database and since the comment wasn't saved, it returns zero results.

You have to call either comment.save or comment.save! after building it in order to persist it to the database.

I hope it helps