ece517-p3/expertiza

Mass assignment is a feature of Rails which allows an application to create a record from the values of a hash.

Example:

User.new(params[:user])

Unfortunately, if there is a user field called admin which controls administrator access, now any user can make themselves an administrator.

attr_accessible and attr_protected can be used to limit mass assignment. However, Brakeman will warn unless attr_accessible is used, or mass assignment is completely disabled.

There are two different mass assignment warnings which can arise. The first is when mass assignment actually occurs, such as the example above. This results in a warning like

Unprotected mass assignment near line 61: User.new(params[:user])

The other warning is raised whenever a model is found which does not use attr_accessible. This produces generic warnings like

Mass assignment is not restricted using attr_accessible

with a list of affected models.

In Rails 3.1 and newer, mass assignment can easily be disabled:

config.active_record.whitelist_attributes = true

Unfortunately, it can also easily be bypassed:

User.new(params[:user], :without_protection => true)

Brakeman will warn on uses of without_protection.

Mass assignment is a feature of Rails which allows an application to create a record from the values of a hash.

Example:

User.new(params[:user])

Unfortunately, if there is a user field called admin which controls administrator access, now any user can make themselves an administrator.

attr_accessible and attr_protected can be used to limit mass assignment. However, Brakeman will warn unless attr_accessible is used, or mass assignment is completely disabled.

There are two different mass assignment warnings which can arise. The first is when mass assignment actually occurs, such as the example above. This results in a warning like

Unprotected mass assignment near line 61: User.new(params[:user])

The other warning is raised whenever a model is found which does not use attr_accessible. This produces generic warnings like

Mass assignment is not restricted using attr_accessible

with a list of affected models.

In Rails 3.1 and newer, mass assignment can easily be disabled:

config.active_record.whitelist_attributes = true

Unfortunately, it can also easily be bypassed:

User.new(params[:user], :without_protection => true)

Brakeman will warn on uses of without_protection.

This cop looks for has(one|many) and belongsto associations where ActiveRecord can't automatically determine the inverse association because of a scope or the options used. This can result in unnecessary queries in some circumstances. :inverse_of must be manually specified for associations to work in both ways, or set to false to opt-out.

Example:

# good
class Blog < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :posts
end

class Post < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :blog
end

Example:

# bad
class Blog < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :posts, -> { order(published_at: :desc) }
end

class Post < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :blog
end

# good
class Blog < ApplicationRecord
  has_many(:posts,
    -> { order(published_at: :desc) },
    inverse_of: :blog
  )
end

class Post < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :blog
end

# good
class Blog < ApplicationRecord
  with_options inverse_of: :blog do
    has_many :posts, -> { order(published_at: :desc) }
  end
end

class Post < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :blog
end

Example:

# bad
class Picture < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :imageable, polymorphic: true
end

class Employee < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :pictures, as: :imageable
end

class Product < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :pictures, as: :imageable
end

# good
class Picture < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :imageable, polymorphic: true
end

class Employee < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :pictures, as: :imageable, inverse_of: :imageable
end

class Product < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :pictures, as: :imageable, inverse_of: :imageable
end

Example:

# bad
# However, RuboCop can not detect this pattern...
class Physician < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :appointments
  has_many :patients, through: :appointments
end

class Appointment < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :physician
  belongs_to :patient
end

class Patient < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :appointments
  has_many :physicians, through: :appointments
end

# good
class Physician < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :appointments
  has_many :patients, through: :appointments
end

class Appointment < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :physician, inverse_of: :appointments
  belongs_to :patient, inverse_of: :appointments
end

class Patient < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :appointments
  has_many :physicians, through: :appointments
end

@see http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html#bi-directional-associations @see http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Associations/ClassMethods.html#module-ActiveRecord::Associations::ClassMethods-label-Setting+Inverses