What's the right way to do counts in Rails?
Solution 1
I would recommend you to avoid direct access to database in my templates because then you're losing a bit of flexibility when it comes to caching.
Try to prepare all the data you need to render in your action instead and then use meaningful instance variables like @number_of_accounts
or @accounts.count
.
This will make your views cleaner and easier to debug and also a bit more DRY if you render action in different formats (html, json, etc)
As to how do you get your numbers - it doesn't really matter that much, just move away from find_* methods towards scoping and write readable code
Solution 2
You don't need a name scope to perform a count.
Account.where(:admin => false).count
But named scopes are an excellent way to make your code more reusable.
Named scopes don't have any noticeable performance impact on your application.
Solution 3
In rails 3 a simple call to count issues a simple count request:
Contact.count
is resolved as:
SELECT COUNT(*) AS count_id FROM "contacts"
a find all by field name will resolve as:
Contact.find_all_by_country("Canada")
SELECT "contacts".* FROM "contacts" WHERE ("contacts"."country" = 'Canada')
I would recommend indexing your admin column for faster lookups and this can be translated into a named scope, but that by itself will only predefine the query, not optimize it.
It is important to note that if you issue
Contact.find_all_by_country("Canada").count
count
is a method on the array class and doesn't actually issue a count on the database:
Contact.find_all_by_country("Canada").count
SELECT "contacts".* FROM "contacts" WHERE ("contacts"."country" = 'Canada')
Solution 4
A named scope shouldn't have an impact on performance
scope :not_admin, where(:admin => false)
Then you can have Account.not_admin.count
Edited per DGM's comment: To check the generated SQL in a console, compare Account.not_admin.to_sql
with Account.find_all_by_admin(false).to_sql
Gotjosh
Updated on July 09, 2022Comments
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Gotjosh almost 2 years
I have a rails app with many following pieces of code:
Our active community of <%= Account.find_all_by_admin(false).count %>
My question is is this the right way to do counts on views? It seems so "dirty" is there a more railish, way to do counts? I'm thinking named scopes perhaps, but I just want to be sure that these type of things won't have a greater impact in performance.
Thank You,
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DGM over 13 years
Account.not_admin.count.to_sql
is an error, at least in rails 3, since count returns a Fixnum. -
Jed Schneider over 13 yearsalso take a look at this article: railway.at/2010/03/09/named-scopes-are-dead
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David Sulc over 13 yearsOops. Couldn't test here, but you must be correct. However, Account.not_admin.to_sql and Account.find_all_by_admin(false).to_sql should be equivalent.
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Gotjosh over 13 yearsThis was the kind of answer i was looking, for I know how to do it, I just wanted to know the BEST way to do it.