Showing only Objects from the past 30 days

Question

Having finally manage to get my app to list jobs under specific dates. I am now looking to find a way to only show jobs created within the past 30 days.

At the moment my method for showing jobs sits in a partial and looks like this:

 <% @jobs.group_by{|x| x.created_at.strftime("%d %b. %Y")}.each do |date,jobs_on_that_date| %>

 <section class="date">
   <%= date %>
 </section>

 <section id="top-job">
   <% jobs_on_that_date.each do |job| %>
    <section id="job-wrapper">
      <%= link_to url_with_protocol(@link.job_url), :target => '_blank' do %>
      <section id="job">
        <%= job.title %> - <%= job.company %>
        <%= job.salary %>
        <%= job.location %> 
        <%= job.job_type %>
    </section>
 </section> 
<% end %>
 <% end %>
 </section>
 <% end %>

Is there way to integrate only showing the past 30 days worth of jobs in the view or would it be better to define this in the controller?

Thanks!

Answer 1

It would be better to do in the controller. The less logic you put in the view, the better.

Assuming that @jobs is the result of an ActiveRecord query, @jobs = @jobs.where('created_at > ?', 30.days.ago) sounds like the query you want.

Answer 2

I think the best way to do this is in the model, with a scope. Then your controller can use it.

# app/models/job.rb
class Job < ActiveRecord::Base
  # ...
  scope :recent, lambda{ where(['created_at > ?', 30.days.ago]) }
  # ...
end

# app/controllers/jobs_controller.rb
class JobsController < ApplicationController
  def show
    @jobs = Job.recent.group_by(&:created_at)
  end
end

# app/views/jobs/show.html.erb
<% @jobs.each do |date,jobs_on_that_date| %>

 <section class="date">
   <%= date.strftime("%d %b. %Y") %>
 </section>

 etc...

<% end %>

A slightly better way of handling the controller & view would be:

# app/controllers/jobs_controller.rb
class JobsController < ApplicationController
  helper_method :recent_jobs

  def show
    # just render...
  end

  protected

  def recent_jobs
    @_jobs ||= Job.recent.group_by(&:created_at)
  end
end

# app/views/jobs/show.html.erb
<% recent_jobs.each do |date,jobs_on_that_date| %>

 etc...

<% end %>

So there is no instance variable copying, and you have a nice controller AP I to use for getting your records.

You could also think about using a decorator to wrap your job object and provide the date-formatting logic there.