How do I prevent an ActiveResource model from making a request?

Question

I have some ActiveResource models like so:

class Meeting
  has_many :sections
end

class Section
  has_many :items
end

class Items
  has_many :items
end

When I do a find on a Meeting, I get a json response like:

   {
      id: 1, ...
      sections: [
        {
          id: 1, ...
          items: [
            {id: 16, ...
             items: [
               {id: 534, ...
                items: [
                  {id: 8976, ...},
                  {id: 8977, ...}
                ]}
             ]}
          ]
        }
    }

And run the following (heavily edited) routine:

    @meeting = Meeting.find(@meeting_guid)
    import_sections


    private

    def import_sections
      @meeting.sections.each do |section|
        new_section = Item.find_or_initialize_by(foreign_guid: section.guid)
        new_section.update!(layout: :section)
        import_items(section, new_section)
      end
    end

    def import_items(item, parent)
      item.items.each do |item|
        position = mema_item.orderpreference.to_i + 1
        sub_item = Item.find_or_initialize_by(foreign_guid: item.guid)
        sub_item.update!(layout: :item, title: item.name, parent: parent)
        import_items(item, sub_item)
      end
    end

When it hits Items 8976 and 8977, it makes requests to /items?item_id=8976 and /items?item_id=8977. Is there a way to prevent it from making these requests when it hits the end of the last child? I don't think I'll ever call Items directly, so can I disable requests on the Item model or something?

Answer 1

I feel silly for not catching this, but I was able to solve the problem quite simply, albeit not through an ActiveResource feature. On the recursive import_items call, I check for if item.attributes.key? 'items', essentially just checking the attributes on the parent object without going into the relationship and creating an api call.