Last Updated on September 27, 2024
Quick Summary
Rails Service Objects is a design pattern implemented in your Rails application that is clean and maintainable as it grows. Rather than cluttering your controllers and models with complex business logic, Service Objects in Rails encapsulate that logic in separate, reusable classes. It makes your code more modular, easier to test, and simpler to debug.
Table of Contents
Introduction
As your applications grow, your business logic complexity does too. It makes it easier for the codebase to become a tangled mess of bloated controllers and overworked models, making it harder to maintain, scale, or even understand. That’s where Service Objects play a crucial role. This robust design pattern helps streamline your code by extracting business logic into reliable and reusable objects.
Now, let’s talk about how it works in RoR. Rails Service Objects take your app to the next level by organizing your logic outside of controllers and models. They let you maintain the simplicity Rails is known for while keeping things lean and efficient. Let’s dive into Rails Service Objects and how they can be implemented in your applications.
What are Rails Service Objects?
A service object in Rails is a Plain Old Ruby Object (PORO) that encapsulates a single piece of business logic or a complex operation. It’s not a built-in Rails but rather a design pattern commonly used in Rails applications to improve code organization and maintainability.
Ruby on Rails service objects manage tasks like file uploading, email sending, payment processing, and interactions with external APIs. The service objects are specific Rails models that sum up the essential functionalities and provide well-defined interfaces for other parts of the application to utilize.
Below are the primary characteristics of service objects include:
- Single responsibility: Each service object typically performs one specific task.
- Input and output: They usually take input parameters and return a result.
- No inheritance: Service objects are typically standalone and don’t inherit from any Rails classes.
- Stateless: They generally don’t maintain a state between calls.
Why Service Objects in Rails?
Service Objects in Rails provide numerous significant advantages for improving code organization, maintainability, and testability:
1. Separation of Concerns
Service objects isolate complex business logic from models and controllers, allowing them to focus on their primary responsibilities. As a result, they promote a cleaner and more understandable codebase. Furthermore, by separating concerns, your code will become more accessible to read and navigate, which reduces the cognitive load on developers.
2. Encapsulation
Ruby on Rails service objects encapsulate the details of specific tasks, making the code more modular and accessible. They reduce the coupling between different application parts and make it easier to make changes without affecting other components. Overall, this simplifies the app’s complexity and makes it easier to understand.
3. Reusability
The Rails Service Objects can be reused for various application parts for everyday tasks, eliminating duplication and improving efficiency. Most of all, in the long run, it can lead to significant time and effort savings in promoting a modular architecture. Also, it can assist in adding new features or modifying existing ones quickly without affecting other application parts.
4. Testability
Service Objects in Rails test independently to facilitate testing and ensure the correctness of your business logic. This simplifies the testing process and helps catch errors early in the development cycle. Testing service objects is often simpler and more efficient without the complexities of models and controllers.
5. Maintainability
While changes are needed, modifying a service object is generally easier than altering models or controllers. It reduces the risk of introducing unintended side effects and makes it easier to maintain the application over time. The isolated nature of service objects helps minimize the risk of unintended side effects, making the application more robust and less prone to bugs.
6. Scalability
Service Objects designs to handle tasks in parallel, improving application performance and scalability. This can be particularly beneficial for applications that handle large volumes of data or complex calculations. Moreover, it can implement distributed systems, where different application components run on separate machines. It improves scalability and fault tolerance.
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How to Implement Rails Service Objects?
Let’s say you are implementing a signup flow in an e-commerce system. The first step is to send the OTP to a mobile number. Next, it will verify the mobile number using OTP.
For this we can create a service which named as send_otp.rb in which we have 2 methods-
1) Initialize every time you call the service object; the initialize method is called by default.
2) Execute sends the OTP using the Twilio/Plivo
You can also create another service and name it as verify_otp.rb in which there is 2 methods-
1) Initialize whenever you call the service object
2) Execute and verify the OTP.
Now the question comes to why I created two services.As by using the service object we are following the single responsibility principle.So by creating two different objects it will be easy to debug.
app/controllers/users_controller.rb
class UsersController < ApplicationController
def send_otp
response = SendOtp.new(params).execute
if response == 'pending'
redirect_to check_otp_path, notice: 'OTP sent successfully.'
else
redirect_to new_path, alert: 'Sorry, something went wrong'
end
end
def create
response = VerifyOtp.new(params).execute
if response
sign_in(user)
redirect_to root_path, notice: 'OTP verified successfully.'
else
redirect_to check_otp_path, alert: 'Entered otp is incorrect, please correct your otp'
end
end
End
app/services/send_otp.rb
class SendOtp
require 'rubygems'
require 'twilio-ruby'
def initialize(params)
@params = params
end
# Send OTP
def execute
begin
Twilio::REST::Client.new(ENV['TWILLIO_ACCOUNT_SID'], ENV['TWILLIO_AUTH_TOKEN']).verify.services("#{ENV["TWILLIO_VERIFY_SERVICE_ID"]}").verifications.create(to: "#{@params['country_code']}#{@params['phone_number']}", channel: 'sms')
rescue Twilio::REST::RestError => e
puts e.message
end
end
end
app/services/verify_otp.rb
class VerifyOtp
require 'rubygems'
require 'twilio-ruby'
def initialize(params)
@params = params
end
# Verify OTP
def execute
begin
verification_check = Twilio::REST::Client.new(ENV['TWILLIO_ACCOUNT_SID'], ENV['TWILLIO_AUTH_TOKEN']).verify.services("#{ENV["TWILLIO_VERIFY_SERVICE_ID"]}").verification_checks.create(to: "#{@params['country_code']}#{@params['phone_number']}", code: "#{@params['otp']}")
verification_check.status == "approved"
rescue Twilio::REST::RestError => e
false
end
end
end
Now, let’s take another example. Our POS system has four to five reports, such as sales and order reports. Each report has some filters by which you can filter out data.
For this, if we follow the Vanila approach then the steps will be
Step 1: We will create a reports_controller
Step 2: Now, we will create a separate method in our controller for each report, such as sales_report, orders_report, etc.
Step 3: We will write all the calculation parts for the sales report or filter queries in respective methods.
Now, as the project expands, we have 12 reports. If we follow the same approach, the controller will become different, and if you are using Rubocop (a library that guides you through the best coding standards), you will receive tons of warnings.
So to keep the code neat and clean we will create a service for each report and will call that service from the controller method. Hence, after having a number of reports it will be easy for us to debug. As we know, it only have to focus on service for the particular report.
Conclusion
Incorporating Rails Service Objects into your development workflow can transform the way you structure and maintain your applications. By extracting complex business logic from controllers and models, Service Objects make your code more modular, scalable, and easier to test. Moreover, as your app grows, this design pattern ensures you can manage improving complexity without sacrificing performance or readability.
Adopting Service Objects is a good option for building robust, maintainable Rails applications. If you need expert guidance, partnering with a leading Ruby on Rails development company can help you implement these design patterns to take your project to the next level.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Service Objects in Rails are placed in the application directory of a Rails application. They interact with models and controllers but are designed to encapsulate specific business logic or operations.
It can be enhanced by moving business logic out of controllers and models; Service Objects make managing and updating code easier. This separation of concerns helps prevent code duplication and reduces the risk of introducing bugs when making changes.
One example of Service Objects is handling user authentication. Instead of placing authentication logic in the user model or controllers, you create an AuthenticationService that manages login, logout, and user verification tasks.
Rails Service Objects can improve apps by addressing code organization and complexity issues. They help prevent controllers and models from becoming too cluttered with business logic, making the codebase more manageable and improving the overall application structure.
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