CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2024 - E2484. Reimplement participants controller.rb

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About Expertiza

Expertiza is an open source project based on Ruby on Rails framework. Expertiza allows the instructor to create new assignments and customize new or existing assignments. It also allows the instructor to create a list of topics the students can sign up for. Students can form teams in Expertiza to work on various projects and assignments. Students can also peer review other students' submissions. Expertiza supports submission across various document types, including the URLs and wiki pages.

Introduction

This project aims to reimplement the participants_controller.rb and participants_helper.rb in the new Expertiza system. The participants_controller.rb manages participants within assignments, and this reimplementation focuses on streamlining its methods, eliminating redundancy, and enhancing code readability and maintainability.

Requirements

  • Implement participants_controller.rb Methods: Fully implement each controller method with the same functionality as the current controller.
  • Import from participants_helper.rb : Integrate relevant helper methods to streamline functionality and remove redundancy.
  • API Creation: Expose API endpoints for all necessary methods to enable seamless access and integration from the frontend. Ensure that each endpoint follows best practices for RESTful API design, including proper error handling and secure data access.
  • Testing with rswag: Create test cases for all methods, focusing on edge cases, and generate rswag documentation.
  • Swagger UI Video Documentation: Record a video walkthrough of API endpoints in Swagger UI, showcasing each method’s functionality.

    • Existing Issues

    Reimplement participants_controller.rb while addressing the following:

  • Refactor code to comply with the Open-Closed Principle and the Single Responsibility Principle.
  • Introduce dependency injection where necessary.
  • Reduce excessive conditional statements.
  • Include sufficient code tests to verify functionality.
  • Enhance comments to better explain each method's functionality, purpose, and rationale for keeping or modifying particular aspects of the code.
  • Provide a more detailed explanation of design choices and refactoring steps.

    • Design / Proposed Solution

    Controller Diagram

    participants_controller.rb Methods / API Calls

     #  Method Endpoint Description
    1 index GET /participants Return a list of participants
    2 show GET /participants/:id Return a specified participant
    3 inherit GET /participants/inherit Copy all participants from a course to an assignment
    4 bequeath GET /participants/bequeath Copy all participants from an assignment to a course
    5 create POST /participants Create a participant
    6 update_authorization PATCH /participants/:id/authorization Update the permissions of a participant
    7 update_handle PATCH /participants/:id/handle Update the handle of a participant
    8 destroy DELETE /participants/:id Delete a specified participant
    9 participant_params - Permitted parameters for creating or updating a Participant object

    The following methods were removed from participants_controller.rb :

  • action_allowed? - No impact on functionality
  • controller_locale - No impact on functionality
  • delete - Handled in the Assignment model, specifically assignment.rb
  • view_copyright_grants - Incorrectly implemented in the old implementation
  • get_user_info - All needed user data can be accessed by leveraging the Participant model's belongs_to relationship to the User model
  • get_signup_topics_for_assignment - Handled in the SignUpTopicsController, specifically sign_up_topics_controller.rb

    • participants_helper.rb Methods

    The methods in participants_helper.rb are outdated and do not impact any functionality in participants_controller.rb.
    Most of these methods focus on user creation, which falls outside the scope of Participants and should not reside here. Additionally, one method addresses permission updates in an outdated manner. This is now handled more effectively by the update_permissions function in participants_controller.rb.
    As a result, these methods will not be carried forward to the new implementation.

    Pattern(s)

    Facade: "A simplified interface that performs many other actions behind the scenes."
    The participants_controller.rb uses the Facade Design Pattern to streamline interactions with the Expertiza backend, abstracting away complex logic and data handling tasks into a simplified API layer. A lot of calls to various services, objects, and features are abstracted, providing a unified, cohesive interface. By centralizing these calls, the controller can reduce dependencies on specific backend structures, making it easier for the front end to perform actions with minimal knowledge of what is going on in the backend, enhancing the maintainability and scalability of our codebase. Some such examples would be to call all the participants of a specific assignment, or pulling information about the course from a participant. Things that would otherwise complicate the front end due to the need to hunt through the backend for information that they need can be abstracted away into the facade interface. The current implementation already employs the facade pattern by its nature, but we will improve it by specifically targeting features of the facade design pattern.

    SOLID Principle(s)

    Open and Closed Principle: "Software entities should be open for extension, but closed for modification."
    Currently, the code directly checks the type of curr_object to determine whether it’s an Assignment or Course, which can make it challenging to extend or modify. To address this, we will implement polymorphism by moving participant-related logic into the respective classes (Assignment, Course, etc.). Each class will define its own behavior for handling participants by overriding a common interface or inheriting from a shared base class. For example, A ParticipantHelper file will define methods like add_user_to_course/assignment, store item, participant_permissions, and numerous other non-idiomatic methods that go against the model view controller design pattern. Method operations that implement business logic, such as the methods listed before, should generally not be the responsibility of the controller.

    Single Responsibility Principle: "A class should only have one responsibility and should never have more than one reason to change."
    The current implementation of the participant controller mostly aligns with the Single Responsibility Principle, but some methods have more than one responsibility, such as combining backend logic with UI feedback. Many methods within the ParticipantsController class have this type of combined logic, for example, list, add, and inherit methods. These methods blend participant management logic with flash message handling. To make our code comply with the Single Responsibility Principle, we can move these flash messages into a helper method. These modifications reduce the controller’s responsibilities, improving our code’s readability and reusability. Lastly, the frontend developers will have predictable API behavior and consistent responses when our code adheres to the Single Responsibility Principle.

    Implementation

    Implement participants_controller.rb Methods

    Refer to the API Call section for all design-related inquiries

    Old Method Name Action New Method Name
    action_allowed? Removed -
    controller_locale Removed -
    list Renamed index
    add Renamed create
    update_authorizations Renamed update_authorization
    destroy No Change destroy
    inherit No Change inherit
    bequeath_all Renamed bequeath
    change_handle Renamed update_handle
    delete Removed -
    view_copyright_grants Removed -
    participant_params No Change participant_params
    get_user_info Removed -
    get_signup_topics_for_assignment Removed -
    - Added show

    To be expanded upon during implementation

    Import from participants_helper.rb

    Refer to the Helper Methods section for all design-related inquiries
    To be expanded upon during implementation

    API Creation

    Refer to the API Call section for all design-related inquiries
    To be expanded upon during implementation

    Testing with rswag

    Refer to the Testing Plan section
    To be expanded upon during implementation

    Swagger UI Video Documentation

    To be added at a later time

    Testing Plan

    rswag
    We will use rswag to test and document our project’s API endpoints. Rswag integrates RSpec testing with Swagger, allowing us to define test cases in RSpec to validate functionality while automatically generating interactive Swagger documentation. This documentation, accessible through Swagger UI, provides developers and stakeholders with a user-friendly way to explore and interact with our API endpoints.

    Tests

    Test ID Test Description
    1 Test 'index' with valid model (Assignment) and ID - Should list participants
    2 Test 'index' with invalid model (Assignment) and ID - Should return an error message
    3 Test 'show' with valid participant ID - Should return the specified participant details
    4 Test 'show' with invalid participant ID - Should return participant not found
    5 Test 'inherit' with valid assignment ID but no course participants - Should display a message indicating no participants were found to inherit
    6 Test 'inherit' with invalid assignment ID - Should return assignment not found message
    7 Test 'inherit' with valid assignment ID and course with participants - Should copy participants from course to assignment
    8 Test 'bequeath' with valid assignment ID with no assignment participants - Should display a message indicating no participants were found
    9 Test 'bequeath' with invalid assignment ID - Should return assignment not found message
    10 Test 'bequeath' with valid assignment ID and course with participants - Should copy participants from assignment to course
    11 Test 'create' with valid user detail - Should successfully create a new participant
    12 Test 'create' with duplicate user information - Should return an error message indicating that the participant already exists
    13 Test 'update_authorization' with valid participant ID and permissions - Should update participant’s permissions successfully
    14 Test `update_authorization` with invalid participant ID - Should return not found message
    15 Test 'update_handle' with valid participant ID and unique handle - Should successfully update
    16 Test 'update_handle' with duplicate handle - Should return an error message indicating handle is in use
    17 Test 'destroy' with valid participant ID - Should delete the specified participant
    18 Test 'destroy' with invalid participant ID - Should return participant not found message

    Team

    Mentor

    • Jay Patel <jhpatel9@ncsu.edu>

    Students

    • Pierce Whelan <pwwhelan@ncsu.edu>
    • Calvin Jiang <crjiang@ncsu.edu>
    • Hechun Zhang <hzhang56@ncsu.edu>

    Relevant Links

    Pull Request [1]
    GitHub Repository [2]
    GitHub Project Board [3]
    participants_controller.rb in Old Expertiza [4]
    participants_helper.rb in Old Expertiza [5]

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