I posted a question awhile ago asking how I could limit the rate at which a form could be submitted from a rails application. I was helped by a very patient user and their solution works great. The code was for my comments controller, and now I find myself wanting to add this functionality to another controller, my Messages controller. I immediately tried reusing the working code from the comments controller but I couldn't get it to work. Instead of asking for the working code, could someone please help me understand my working comment controller code?

class CommentsController < ApplicationController
  #...

  before_filter :post_check

  def record_post_time
    cookies[:last_post_at] = Time.now.to_i
  end
  def last_post_time
    Time.at((cookies[:last_post_at].to_i rescue 0))       
  end    
  MIN_POST_TIME = 2.minutes    
  def post_check
    return true if  (Time.now - last_post_time) > MIN_POST_TIME
    flash[:warning] = "You are trying to reply too fast."
    @message = Message.find(params[:message_id])
    redirect_to(@message)
    return false
  end

  #...

  def create
    @message = Message.find(params[:message_id])
    @comment = @message.comments.build(params[:comment])
    if @comment.save
      record_post_time
      flash[:notice] = "Replied to \"#{@message.title}\""
      redirect_to(@message)
    else
      render :action => "new"
    end
  end

  def update
    @message = Message.find(params[:message_id])
    @comment = Comment.find(params[:id])
    if @comment.update_attributes(params[:comment])
      record_post_time
      redirect_to post_comment_url(@message, @comment)
    else
      render :action => "edit"
    end  
  end
#...
end

My Messages controller is pretty much a standard rails generated controller with a few before filters and associated private methods for DRYing up the code and a redirect for non existent pages.

I'll explain how much of the code I understand. When a comment is created, a cookie is created with a last_post_time value. If they try to post another comment, the cookie is checked if the last one was made in the last two minutes. If it was a flash warning is displayed and no comment is recorded. What I don't really understand is how the post_check method works and how I can adapt it for my simpler posts controller. I thought I could reuse all the code in the message controller with the exception of the line:

@message = Message.find(params[:message_id])
# (don't need the redirect code)

in the post_check method. But it trips up on the "record_post_time" in the create action/method. I really want to understand this. Can someone explain why this doesn't work? I greatly appreciate you reading my lengthy question.