title: Rails 3 way working with multiple if statements and form create/new
body: <p>I have a problem to approach and not sure what the most appropriate method will be to make this work. Here the background to begin: </p>
  
  <p>There are two models I am working with Procedures and Appointments. The Appointments model belongs_to the Procedures model and Procedures model has_many Appointments.</p>
  
  <p>Now on the procedures model there are two key points to focus on, rather, two key columns.</p>
  
  <p><code>attr_accessible :visits, :occurence</code></p>
  
  <p>visits is the specific number of times to schedule the Appointment(s).
  occurence is the frequency of the visits. An example would be <code>visits: "5", occurence: "weekly"</code></p>
  
  <p>So when I am submitting my form I would like to write a method that looks at both <code>visits: "x"</code> and <code>occurence: ["weekly", "biweekly", "monthly"]</code> to then create a if or a switch -- php does switch still looking into ruby version -- but I suspect there is an elegant way to write this up. </p>
  
  <p>My current create method looks like this:</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-rb prettyprint-override"><code>def create
    @appointment = Appointment.new(params[:appointment])
    set_variables
    if @appointment.save
      flash[:success] = "Appointment scheduled!"
      redirect_to patient_path(@current_patient)
    else
      redirect_to patient_path(@current_patient)
      flash[:error] = "Appointment Date and Time cannot be blank, please try again."
    end
  end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What would be the best way to tackle a) identifying <code>occurence: ["weekly", "biweekly", "monthly"]</code> and then processing <code>visits: "x"</code> based on something similar to:</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-rb prettyprint-override"><code>if @appointment.occurence == "weekly"
    (x-1).times do |n|
      submit same params but change within params appointment_date: = ((@appointment.appointment_date) + (n+1).week.to_formatted_s(:db)
      @appointment.save
    end
  end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>...and so on and so forth using <code>(n+1).month</code> for monthly occurrence <code>(n+2).day</code> and for bi-weekly occurrence(s).</p>
  
  <p>Thank you in advance, hope this clarifies things. Just one item to note, do I need to store in database <code>visits:</code> and <code>occurence:</code>, I suspect not but would like to be certain they are used when hitting the models_controller create function.</p>