Controller code with exception handling

I know you wanted to avoid if / else, but I think i would probably write it like this:

def create
  @stud = Student.new params[:student]

  if @stud.save
    redirect_to @stud
  else
    render :action => :new
  end
end

Which is the same amount of code but has two advantages:

• it is more readable by a human. Rescue is not a human concept in logic, whereas if / else is clearly understood.

• when you rescue here, you rescue from anything. if @stud.save is specific, if that fails it won't throw an exception, but will return false. So you are responding to the appropriate condition.

One other note: if you want to stick with the rescue pattern, you could shorten the function by a single line by writing

@stud = Student.create! params[:student]

which is the same as writing:

@stud = Student.new params[:student]
@stud.save!

ian.

save actually returns false only if before filters or validation cancel the operation. It throws database exceptions. Therefore it is, in my opinion, a good practice. I suggest not to rescue an exception that you do not really deal with. It may make the user crazy if the database index is broken but the application constantly says there is a validation error.

You can rescue ActiveRecord::RecordInvalid if you 'really' do not want to use if statements. But actually that is the only thing that save does.

You can use ActiveController::Responder. According to the Rails Guide it does the same thing as if-else statement (and looks beautiful):

def create
  @stud = Student.new(params[:student])
  flash[:notice] = 'Student was successfully created.' if @stud.save
  respond_with(@stud)
end