How to correctly set up model associations - ruby-on-rails

I want a user to be able to create and save or choose an existing client to add to an invoice. There can only be one client per invoice.
I currently have 3 models users invoices and items
I am using a simple has_many relationship currently but I am getting confused now that I want to add a new table clients. I was hoping I could get some advice on what association to use.
My current associations
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :invoices
class Invoice < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
has_many :items, :dependent => :destroy
class Item < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :invoice
So I was thinking to do something simple like adding has_many :clients
to users, add has_one :client to invoices and add the table clients
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :invoices
has_many :clients
class Client < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to : user
class Invoice < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
has_many :items, :dependent => :destroy
has_one :client
Would this work? Is there a better way?

It is very rare that you will use has_one. In your case the following models make more sense:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :invoices
end
class Invoice < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :client
has_many :items, :dependent => :destroy
end
class Item < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :invoice
end
class Client < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :invoices
has_many :items, through: :invoices
end

Related

Rails Complex Model Association, Shared Document Between Users and Teams

I have a complex model association in mind, and was wondering how I could accomplish it. This is what i want to accomplish.
I have a User and a Document model
A User can create documents. He is now the document admin.
He can add other users to his document, and give them permissions such as Editor, Viewer, Admin
He can also make a team, a group of users, and add multiple teams to his document. Each user on a team that the User has added to his document will also have permissions. A user can belong to many teams.
I am a little bit confused about the associations I will have to setup. This is the code I have so far, which has not incorporated the team aspect:
class User < ApplicationRecord
has_many :participations
has_many :documents, through: :participations
end
class Document < ApplicationRecord
has_many :participations
has_many :users, through: :participations
end
class Participation < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :document
enum role: [ :admin, :editor, :viewer ]
end
I would recommend introducing a Team and TeamMembership models in a similary way to existing models. Also change the belongs_to association on Participation from user to a polymorphic participant.
class Team < ApplicationRecord
has_many :team_memberships
has_many :users, through: :team_memberships
has_many :participations, as: :participant
end
class TeamMembership < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :team
belongs_to :user
end
class User < ApplicationRecord
has_many :team_memberships
has_many :teams, through: :team_memberships
has_many :participations, as: :participant
end
class Participation < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :participant, polymorphic: true
belongs_to :document
enum role: [ :admin, :editor, :viewer ]
end
class Document < ApplicationRecord
has_many :participations
# if desired create a users method to conveniently get a list of users with access to the document
def users
#users ||= participations.flat_map do |participation|
case participation.partipant
when User
[participation.participant]
when Team
participation.participant.users
end
end
end
end
I would only add has_many :through associations as you discover a benefit/need to having them. That will reduce complexity of maintaining them unless you have specific use case for them. In the case of User having a teams association, it's pretty obvious that you'll be likely to want to get the teams that the user is a part of and since there's no specific information in the TeamMembership object that you are likely to need in that determination, it's a good has_many :through to have.
EDIT: Added Document model.
Since you already have a participation model, you can use that as the join model between users and teams. Since a user can belong to multiple teams, and a document can have multiple teams, you can use a has_many through relationship between teams and documents. We'll call it the DocumentTeam model.
class User < ApplicationRecord
has_many :participations
has_many :documents, through: :participations
has_many :teams, through: :participations
end
class Participation < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :document
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :team, optional: true
enum role: [ :admin, :editor, :viewer ]
end
class Team < ApplicationRecord
has_many :participations
has_many :users, through: :participations
has_many :document_teams
has_many :document, through: :document_teams
end
class Document < ApplicationRecord
has_many :participations
has_many :users, through: :participations
has_many :document_teams
has_many :teams, through: :document_teams
end
class DocumentTeam < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :document
belongs_to :team
end

when to use polymorphic associations vs STI vs another table in rails

I have taken a look at Polymorphic associations and STI but I don't really know if they apply to my specific use case. In my app I have the following relevant classes:
class Restaurant < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :owner, class_name: "User"
has_many :menus
has_many :dishes
has_many :categories
has_many :bookings
has_many :simple_bookings
mount_uploader :photo, PhotoUploader
end
class Dish < ApplicationRecord
has_many :menu_dishes
has_many :menus, through: :menu_dishes
belongs_to :category
belongs_to :restaurant
mount_uploader :photo, PhotoUploader
end
class Menu < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :restaurant
has_many :bookings
has_many :categories
has_many :menu_dishes
has_many :dishes, through: :menu_disheshas_many :menu_dishes
end
class MenuDish < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :dish
belongs_to :menu
end
So far the user flow is the following:
A restaurant owner signs up and creates restaurant dishes. Then this owner creates a menu containing different MenuDishes.
Afterwards, users can search for different menus and book them.
My problem is the following:
I want to implement a feature where owners can add up to 3 MenuDishOptions (that belong to MenuDishes) so that a user can change each MenuDish with the available MenuDishOption for that MenuDish.
In other words, I want each MenuDish to contain many MenuDishOptions. Once a MenuDishOption is selected, the MenuDish passes to be a MenuDishOption and the selected MenuDishOption to a MenuDish.
Therefore the MenuDishOption class would look something like this:
class MenuDishOption < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :menu_dish
has_one :dish
belongs_to :menu, through: menu_dishes
end
The MenuDish class would be updated to:
class MenuDish < ApplicationRecord
has_many :menu_dish_options
belongs_to :menu
belongs_to :dish
end
Please let me know if I need to share more info and thanks a million to anyone that takes the time to help this newbie.

Association between 3 models

I would like a user be able to create a course(so it should belong to one user) and also be able to join another course that it haven't created by him.What is the proper associations between the course and the user ? I want to make the following model associations:
Class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :courses
has_many :comments ,through: :courses
end
Class Course < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :users #here i am not sure
has_many :comments
end
Class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :courses
end
I think what you should be able to do something like:
Class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :courses
has_many :course_users
has_many :subscribed_courses, through: :course_users, source: :course # I think you should be able to do foreign_key: :course_id, class_name: 'Course'
has_many :comments ,through: :courses
end
Class Course < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
has_many :course_users
has_many :participants, through: :course_users, source: :user # I think you should be able to do foreign_key: :user_id, class_name: 'User'
has_many :comments
end
Class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :courses
end
#course_users is a join table for courses and users
class CourseUser < ActiveRecord::Base
# inside here you could have several other connections e.g grade of a user in a course within this join model
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :course
end
If I'm understanding what you're saying - you need to have a third model - you can call it enrollment
For Course you would use belongs_to :user if each course is created as a user.
Your Enrollment model with have two HABTAM
Class Enrollment < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :users
has_and_belongs_to_many :courses
end
(An Aside, if a course is going to be offered more than once, you'll have to add an additional model for each instance of the course and the enrollment will belong to that model, and not courses)

Active Record Associations: has_and_belongs_to_many, has_many :through or polymorphic association?

The Ruby on Rails app I am working on allows users to create and share agendas with other users.
In addition, we must be able to:
Display a list of agendas for each user, on his profile
Display a list of users associated with an agenda, on the agenda's page
When sharing an agenda with another user, define a role for this user, and display the role of this user on the list mentioned right above
I was going to go with a has_and_belongs_to_many association between the user and the agenda models, like that:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :agendas
end
class Agenda < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :users
end
But then I wondered whether this would let me get and display the #user.agenda.user.role list of roles on the given agenda page of a given user.
And I thought I should probably go with a has_many :through association instead, such as:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :roles
has_many :agendas, through: :roles
end
class Role < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :agenda
end
class Agenda < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :roles
has_many :users, through: :roles
end
And although I was pretty comfortable about the idea of a user having several roles (one for each agenda), I am not sure about the idea of an agenda having several roles (one for each user?).
Finally, to add to the confusion, I read about the polymorphic association and thought it could also be a viable solution, if done this way for instance:
class Role < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :definition, polymorphic: true
end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :roles, as: :definition
end
class Agenda < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :roles, as: :definition
end
Does any of the above solutions sound right for the situation?
UPDATE: Doing some research, I stumbled upon this article (from 2012) explaining that has_many :through was a "smarter" choice than has_and_belongs_to_many. In my case, I am still not sure about the fact that an agenda would have many roles.
UPDATE 2: As suggested in the comments by #engineersmnkyn, a way of solving this would be to go with two join tables. I tried to implement the following code:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :agendas, through: :jointable
end
class Agenda < ActiveRecord::Base
end
class Role < ActiveRecord::Base
end
class Jointable < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :agenda
has_many :agendaroles through :jointable2
end
class Jointable2 < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :roles
belongs_to :useragenda
end
I am not sure about the syntax though. Am I on the right track? And how should I define the Agenda and the Role models?
UPDATE 3: What if I went with something like:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :roles
has_many :agendas, through: :roles
end
class Role < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :agenda
end
class Agenda < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :roles
has_many :users, through: :roles
end
and then, in the migration file, go with something like:
class CreateRoles < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
create_table :roles do |t|
t.belongs_to :user, index: true
t.belongs_to :agenda, index: true
t.string :privilege
t.timestamps
end
end
end
Would I be able to call #user.agenda.privilege to get the privilege ("role" of creator, editor or viewer) of a given user for a given agenda?
Conversely, would I be able to call #agenda.user.privilege ?
Okay I will preface by saying I have not tested this but I think one of these 2 choices should work well for you.
Also if these join tables will never need functionality besides a relationship then has_and_belongs_to_many would be fine and more concise.
Basic Rails rule of thumb:
If you need to work with the relationship model as its own entity, use has_many :through. Use has_and_belongs_to_many when working with legacy schemas or when you never work directly with the relationship itself.
First using your example (http://repl.it/tNS):
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :user_agendas
has_many :agendas, through: :user_agendas
has_many :user_agenda_roles, through: :user_agendas
has_many :roles, through: :user_agenda_roles
def agenda_roles(agenda)
roles.where(user_agenda_roles:{agenda:agenda})
end
end
class Agenda < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :user_agendas
has_many :users, through: :user_agendas
has_many :user_agenda_roles, through: :user_agendas
has_many :roles, through: :user_agenda_roles
def user_roles(user)
roles.where(user_agenda_roles:{user: user})
end
end
class Role < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :user_agenda_roles
end
class UserAgenda < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :agenda
has_many :user_agenda_roles
has_many :roles, through: :user_agenda_roles
end
class UserAgendaRoles < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :role
belongs_to :user_agenda
end
This uses a join table to hold the relationship of User <=> Agenda and then a table to join UserAgenda => Role.
The Second Option is to use a join table to hold the relationship of User <=> Agenda and another join table to handle the relationship of User <=> Agenda <=> Role. This option will take a bit more set up from a CRUD standpoint for things like validating if the user is a user for that Agenda but allows a little flexibility.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :user_agendas
has_many :agendas, through: :user_agendas
has_many :user_agenda_roles
has_many :roles, through: :user_agenda_roles
def agenda_roles(agenda)
roles.where(user_agenda_roles:{agenda: agenda})
end
end
class Agenda < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :user_agendas
has_many :users, through: :user_agendas
has_many :user_agenda_roles
has_many :roles, through: :user_agenda_roles
def user_roles(user)
roles.where(user_agenda_roles:{user: user})
end
end
class Role < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :user_agenda_roles
end
class UserAgenda < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :agenda
end
class UserAgendaRoles < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :role
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :agenda
end
I know this is a long answer but I wanted to show you more than 1 way to solve the problem in this case. Hope it helps

Struggling with has_many :through

Suppose I have 3 Models like this (not sure if this is correct):
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :lessons
has_many :points, through: :progress
end
class Progress < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
has_many :lessons
end
class Lesson < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :progress
end
(The Progress table has user_id and lesson_id fields.)
How would I make it so calling #user.points would return the amount of entries into the Progress table. Also, how would I build a relationship?
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :progresses
has_many :lessons, through: :progresses
end
class Progress < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :lesson
end
class Lesson < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :progresses
end
First, you need to set up the association for progress on your User model, so that the through association will work:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :lessons
has_many :progress
has_many :points, through: :progress
end
Then you'll need to define a method (or relation) of points on your Progress table. Or, if you simply want a count of records, you could do: #user.points.size

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