Pattern match to check if association is preloaded

Hi, I’m wondering if the following is a viable approach.

def followed_by?(%{followers: followers}, user) when is_list(followers) do
  followers
  |> Enum.any?(fn follower ->
    follower.id == user.id
  )
end

def followed_by?(offer, user) do
  offer
  |> assoc(:followers)
  |> where(user_id: ^user.id)
  |> Repo.exists?()
end

Depending on the context, an offer may or may not have the followers association preloaded.
Pattern matching is used to check this, so that I can avoid unneeded database query when it actually is preloaded.

My doubt is about the guard: is is_list a good approach here?

It obviously works, because %Ecto.Association.NotLoaded{} is not a list and since it’s a has_many assoctiation, it produces a list when loaded.

But how about the readability/understandability?

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I’d probably reverse it and match on %Ecto.Association.NotLoaded{}, because it would be clearer to me.

7 Likes

There is also Ecto.assoc_loaded?/1. But you can’t use it as a guard.

Also in terms of readability def followed_by?(%Offer{followers: .. } is a bit easer to follow I think.

2 Likes

Another thing to think about… I think the first function knows a bit too much.

It reaches into the %Offer{} which happens to have followers preloaded, and thats why it works. Imagine %Offer{} had other associations that may or may not be preloaded but are needed by followed_by?. Then the pattern matching would have to take into account all these different scenarios.

Perhaps you can accomplish this in a different way (while still efficient). Let’s say you have a show page on which you show 1 offer. Then you can simply use the followed_by?(offer, user) you already have (2nd function).

But then perhaps there’s an index page with a list of offers which preloads followers (I assume). In that case I would perform an additional query: offers_followed_by_user(user). It can just return the ids of the offers for example. Then it is straightforward and efficient to check if a certain offer on the index page is followed by the user (offer.id in offers_followed_by_user).

3 Likes

I like this.

In fact, I went for a walk right after posting this question and returned home with exactly same idea in mind. I guess time away from keyboard pays off :slight_smile:

It is more direct than using is_list, which seemed a bit too clever.

Although it seems to be reaching a bit too deep into Ecto’s internals, I think it’s safe - any breaking change in Ecto in this regard, would be most likely caught at compile-time (undefined struct).

Yes, it’s another approach I consider. However, I think using pattern matching here, would be more concise and readable in this simple scenario.