How would you tidy up this controller logic?

Question

I've got some logic in a controller that sets a status of an object if certain conditions are met:

if params[:concept][:consulted_legal] == 0 && params[:concept][:consulted_marketing] == 1
  @concept.attributes = {:status => 'Awaiting Compliance Approval'}
elsif params[:concept][:consulted_marketing] == 0 && params[:concept][:consulted_legal] == 1 
  @concept.attributes = {:status => 'Awaiting Marketing Approval'}
elsif params[:concept][:consulted_marketing] == 0 && params[:concept][:consulted_legal] == 0
  @concept.attributes = {:status => 'Awaiting Marketing & Legal Approval'}
else
  @concept.attributes = {:status => 'Pending Approval'}
end

that I share between create and update actions. How would you go about refactoring this nastiness? Looking for best practices.

New to programming and keen to clean up my code.

TIA.

Answer 1

You can make your code less dependent on both conditions and make it a lot more flexible.

waiting_on = []
waiting_on << 'Compliance' unless params[:concept][:consulted_marketing]
waiting_on << 'Legal' unless params[:concept][:consulted_legal]
status = waiting_on.empty? ? "Awaiting #{waiting_on.join(' & ')} Approval" : 'Pending Approval'
@concept.attributes = {:status => status}

Version for both create and update without filter:

def create
  set_concept_status_attribute
  ...
end

def update
  set_concept_status_attribute
  ...
end

private
  def set_concept_status_attribute
    waiting_on = []
    waiting_on << 'Compliance' unless params[:concept][:consulted_marketing]
    waiting_on << 'Legal' unless params[:concept][:consulted_legal]
    status = waiting_on.empty? ? "Awaiting #{waiting_on.join(' & ')} Approval" : 'Pending Approval'
    @concept.attributes = {:status => status}
  end

Or with a before_filter:

before_filter :set_concept_status_attribute, :only => [:create, :update]

def create
  ...
end

def update
  ...
end

If you can move it to you view, it looks even better:

module ConceptHelper
  def get_concept_status
    ...
  end
end

<%= get_concept_status %>