find a user by model associations rails - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have a model Camera in which
belongs_to :user, :foreign_key => 'owner_id', :class_name => 'EvercamUser'
i have asscociation like this. when i do Camera.first
#<Camera id: 6, created_at: "2013-12-12 17:30:32", updated_at: "2015-11-19 10:19:33", exid: "dublin-rememberance-floor2", owner_id: 4, is_public: true
i can get owner id, is there any way to create such function that , along side getting owner id, i can get the data which linked with this id for example at id = 4
#<EvercamUser id: 4, created_at: "2013-12-12 16:43:46", updated_at: "2015-04-16 15:23:19", firstname: "Garrett", lastname: "Heaver", username: "garrettheaver"
this user is present, what if when i do Camera.first then instead of OnwerID, how can i get the owners Name?
Any help will be appreciated!

Answer 1

how can i get the owners Name
You'd call the associative object on the Camera object:
#camera = Camera.find x
#user = #camera.user
#user.name #-> outputs name of associated user object
... this will allow you to call the attributes of the child object on it: #camera.user.name or #camera.user.email, etc
Off topic, but I always include a reference to delegate for this type of issue; it avoids the law of demeter (where you're using more than one point to access data).
This would allow you to use:
#app/models/camera.rb
class Camera < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user, foreign_key: :owner_id, class_name: 'EvercamUser'
delegate :name, to: :user, prefix: true #-> #camera.user_name
end
#camera = Camera.find x
#camera.user_name #-> outputs the user's name on the camera object (not user object)
To give you some context, Rails uses ActiveRecord to invoke/create objects for you.
In line with the object orientated nature of Rails, ActiveRecord is known as an ORM (Object Relationship Mapper). This basically allows you to create an object through ActiveRecord, and if it is associated to another (as Rails does with its associations), it will append the associated object onto the parent.
Thus, when you're asking about calling owner_id, you're referring to the foreign_key of the association (the database column which joins the two tables together):
What you need is to reference the associated object, which I've detailed above.

Answer 2

What about using join here?
Camera.all.joins(:evercamusers)
Camera.where(:id => 1).joins(:users).first
Note: I'm a bit unsure if the correct parameter should be ":users" or ":evercamusers"
http://apidock.com/rails/ActiveRecord/QueryMethods/joins
You could also add methods to your class to do this.
class Camera < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user, :foreign_key => 'owner_id', :class_name => 'EvercamUser'
def firstname
self.user.firstname
end
end
When you try to output data from Camera like this:
#<Camera id: 6, created_at: "2013-12-12 17:30:32", updated_at: "2015-11-19 10:19:33", exid: "dublin-rememberance-floor2", owner_id: 4, is_public: true
It won't show. But if you call the method like this, it should work:
Camera.first.firstname # "Garrett"
Also, if JSON is acceptable you could override the as_json method.
def as_json(options={})
{ :firstname => self.user.firstname }
end
Then call it with
Camera.first.as_json
If you need to do it with all, simply loop it
Camera.all.each { |c| puts c.firstname }