city state country setting + validation proiblem

gistfile1.rb

# in a standard situation, params will be passed into a Coordinate object like below:

{
  city_input: "New York",
  state_or_country_input: "NY",
  latitude: "40.7143528",
  longitude: "-74.0059731",
  neighborhood: "Tyler Run-Queens Gate",
  city: "New York",
  state: "New York",
  state_code: "NY",
  sub_state: "York",
  sub_state_code: "York",
  country: "United States",
  country_code: "US",
  postal_code: "17403",
  route: "New Fairview Church Road",
  street_number: "1873",
  street_address: "",
  not_geocodable: 1
}

# countries typically already exist in a populated db. states will often need to be created if international. so
# so a test environment is actually pretty ideal to test the creation and setting of these associated cities/states/countries

# city requires a state and country
# since state requires a country
# if a city has an existing state, then country is assumed to exist
# in a geocoding situation, setting country state and city in that order solve this problem
# but in something like a form, which will most likely pass params in order like above,
# city= state= country= is set in this order, which invalidates city and state if their associated locations don't necessarily exist

# so assuming the top down city, state, and country setting of these coordinate locationed associations
# city gets set first
# self here is a Coordinate object


if self.state
  city_setter() # finds or creates a city with correct associations (state, country) and links it to a coordinate with city_id
else # state hasn't been set yet
  #