I think this is a lot simpler than the title probably lets on. Here are my three models with the associations:
Update: associations were incorrect previously. Here are the corrected associations:
#app/models/call_service.category.rb
class CallServiceCategory < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :call_services
end
#app/models/call_service.rb
class CallService < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :call_service_category
has_many :calls
end
#app/models/call.rb
class Call < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :call_service
end
So I have a group of call_ids for the calls I want:
#call_ids = [1,2,3,4]
Initial step which works:
What I want to do is grab only the calls with the ids specified in #call_ids. Then, I want to eager load only the associated call_services for those grabbed calls. The following does this perfectly:
#call_ids = [1,2,3,4]
#calls_by_service = CallService.includes(:calls).where("calls.id IN (?)", #call_ids).references(:calls)
This is great. Now I can iterate through only those selected calls' call_services, and I can even list all of those selected calls per service like so:
<% #calls_by_service.each do |call_service| %>
<p> <%= call_service.description %> </p>
<% call_service.calls.each do |call| %>
<%= call.name %><br>
<% end %>
<% end %>
What is great about this too is that #calls_by_service does not contain ALL of the call_services, but instead only those call_service records associated with the calls specified in #call_ids. Exactly what I want at this level.
One Level Deeper which is where I am having trouble:
This is great but I need to go one level deeper: I want to display only the associated call_service_categories for the associated call_services of those selected calls specified by #call_ids.
In other words: I want to grab only the calls with the ids specified in #call_ids. Then: I want to eager load only the associated call_services for those grabbed calls. Then: I want to eager load only the associated call_service_categories for those grabbed calls.
A visual of the structure is like this:
So I want to be able to iterate through those associated call_service_categories (ex: 'Emergency Relief', 'Employment'), and then iterate through the associated call_services of those calls specified in the #call_ids, and then display those calls per service.
I figured out one level (by call_service), now I just need to figure out one level deeper (by call_service_category).
In the rails guides, I attempted looking at the section on specifying conditions on eager loaded associations. I was not having success, but I think the answer is in that section.
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!
One of the belongs_to associations (in CallService or Call) should be actually a has_one (one-to-one relationship – belongs_to on the one side and has_one on the other). Apart from that, you can try the following code to produce a chained query with left joins and retrieve fields from all 3 tables:
CallServiceCategory.includes(call_services: :calls)
.where(calls: {id: #call_ids})
.references(:call_services, :calls)
I've noticed that you have a through association on your CallServiceCategory model, but as there would be no :call_services in includes, you can't reference fields from CallService model in references (you can, but they just won't appear in the actual sql query).
Related
Basically, I want to write a web-based curation tool for clinical conditions (disease) and their underlying genetics. Say, I have a clinical condition (class: Phenotype), and I have "mutations"(class: Genotype) that belong to that condition - either individually (i.e. a given mutation is directly causing this condition) or as a group (two or more mutations together cause the condition). Each condition can have one or more of such groups (i.e. may be cause by different mutations or groups of mutations). So I figured I need to create a grouping class (class: GenotypeGroup) to make that association. What I cannot figure out is how to do the form... First, I would want to enter a phenotype with some description. I then would like to use the "show" view to add a new genotype_group to that phenotype (Add new genotype group). This would have to create, implicitly (since it is basically only a cross-reference table) the genotype_group and one or more genotypes which it links to the phenotype entry.
Right now, I have:
class Phenotype
has_many :genotype_groups
has_many :genotypes, through: :genotype_groups
accepts_nested_attributes_for :genotype_groups
end
class GenotypeGroup
belongs_to :phenotype
has_many :genotypes
accepts_nested_attributes_for :genotypes
end
class Genotype
belongs_to :genotype
end
And zero idea how this would work in terms of nested forms. If anyone has a helpful web resources (been googling for > 1hour now, but apparently don't even know what the thing I am trying to do is called..) - that would be great!
Cheers,
M
Turns out I was missing two things:
a) When nesting the genotype object, I need to add a "Genotype.new" to the nested form element:
<% f.fields_for :genotypes, Genotype.new do |gt| %>
something_here
<% end %>
b) I had to declare which variables should be carried (i.e. are permitted) by the params object in the respective controller(s) so that I could pass those values between the classes during the nested object creation.
I have a feeling this is a pretty basic question, but for some reason I'm stumped by it (Rails newbie) and can't seem to find the answer (which may be I'm not searching properly).
So I have a basic has_many :through relationship like this:
class User < ApplicationRecord
has_many :contacts, through :user_contacts
class Contact < ApplicationRecord
has_many :users, through :user_contacts
In users/show.html.erb I'm iterating through a single user's contacts, like:
<% #user.contacts.each do |c| %>
<%= c.name %>
<% end %>
Now inside of that each loop, I want to access the user_contact join model that's associated with the given user and contact in order to display the created_at timestamp that indicates when the user <--> contact relationship was made.
I know I could just do a UserContact.find call to look up the model in the database by the user_id and contact_id but somehow this feels superfluous. If I understand correctly how this works (it's entirely possible I don't) the user_contact model should have already been loaded when I loaded the given user and its contacts from the database already. I just don't know how to properly access the correct model. Can someone help with the correct syntax?
Actually the join model will not have been loaded yet: ActiveRecord takes the through specification to build its SQL JOIN statements for querying the correct Contact records but effectively will only instantiate those.
Assuming you have a UserContact model, you could do sth like this:
#user.user_contacts.includes(:contact).find_each do |uc|
# now you can access both join model and contact without additional queries to the DB
end
If you want to keep things readable without cluttering your code with uc.contact.something, you can set up delegations inside the UserContact model that delegate some properties to contact or user respectively. For example this
class UserContact < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :contact
delegate :name, to: :contact, prefix: true
end
would allow you to write
uc.contact_name
First of all, the has_many :things, through: :other_things clause is going to look for the other_things relationship to find :things.
Think of it as a method call of sorts with magic built in to make it performant in SQL queries. So by using a through clause you're more or less doing something like:
def contacts
user_contacts.map { |user_contact| user_contact.contacts }.flatten
end
The context of the user_contacts is completely lost.
Since it looks like user_contacts is a one-to-one join. It would be easier to do something like this:
<% #user.user_contacts.each do |user_contact| %>
<%= user_contact.contact.name %>
<% end %>
Also since you're new to Rails it's worth mentioning that to load those records without an N+1 query you can do something like this in your controller:
#user = User.includes(user_contacts: [:contacts]).find(params[:id])
Use .joins and .select in this way:
#contacts = current_user.contacts.joins(user_contacts: :users).select('contacts.*, user_contacts.user_contact_attribute_name as user_contact_attribute_name')
Now, inside #contacts.each do |contact| loop, you can call contact.user_contact_attribute_name.
It looks weird because contact doesn't have that user_contact_attribute_name, only UserContact does, but the .select portion of the query will make that magically available to you on each contact instance.
The contacts.* portion is what tells the query to make all contact's attributes available as well.
I have a Track table and a Section table. A track has many sections. Sections are connected to their respective task by the Section's :track_id, which corresponds to the Track's :id attribute.
<% #track = Track.find(params[:id]) %>
<% #sections = Section.find_by_track_id(#track.id) %>
In the code above I'm trying to find multiple sections that share the same :track_id attribute, but find_by_track_id() only returns the first. What's the best way to get all of them?
Thanks!
If your tracks and sections are related in this way, then the best way to relate them is by using the methods that come automatically from Rails' associations.
in this case, I expect in your model files, you have the following:
class Track < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :sections
end
class Section < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :track
end
Then you can get the sections for a track like this:
#track = Track.find(params[:id])
#sections = #track.sections
You're looking for where, which finds all records where a specific set of conditions are met.
#sections = Section.where(track_id: #track.id)
This is unrelated to your question, but you should set #sections and #track in your controller. As it seems like you're new to Rails, I'd highly recommend reading through the Rails Guides. They will help you immensely on your journey.
EDIT: I was solving for the general question of "Find multiple database objects by attribute in Rails?", which is how to find multiple database objects in the general case. #TarynEast's method is the way to go to find all of the sections for a track, or more generally, all of the objects that belong to the desired object. For the specific case you're asking for above, go with #TarynEast's solution.
Association
To extend Taryn East's answer, you need to look into ActiveRecord Associations.
In your model, if you have the following has_many relationship:
#app/models/track.rb
Class Track < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :sections
end
#app/models/section.rb
Class Section < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :track
end
This will set up a relational database association between your tracks and sections datatables.
--
Associative Data
The magic of Rails comes into play here
When you call the "parent" object, you'll be able to locate it using its primary key (typically the ID). The magic happens when Rails automatically uses this primary_key as a foreign_key of the child model - allowing you to call all its data as an append to the parent object:
#track = Track.find params[:id] #-> find single Track by primary key
#sections = #track.sections #-> automagically finds sections using the track primary key
This means if you call the following, it will work exactly how you want:
#sections.each do |section|
section.name
end
Where
Finally, if you wanted to look up more than one record at a time, you should identify which ActiveRecord method you should use:
find is to locate a single record by id
finy_by key: "value" is to locate a single record by your defined key/column
where is to return multiple items using your own conditions
So to answer your base line question, you'll want to use where:
#sections = Section.where track_id: params[:id]
This is not the right answer, but it should help you
<% #sections=#track.sections%>
Use find when you are looking for one specific element identified by it's id.
Model.find is using the primary key column. Therefore there is always exactly one or no result.
I am using Ruby on Rails 3.2.2 and I have the following has_many :through association in order to "order articles in categories":
class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :category_associations # Association objects
has_many :associated_categories, :through => :category_associations # Associated objects
end
class CategoryAssociation < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_list :scope => 'category_id = #{category_id} AND creator_user_id = #{creator_user_id}'
belongs_to :associated_article
belongs_to :creator_user, :foreign_key => 'creator_user_id'
end
On retrieving associated_categories I would like to load category_associations objects created by a user (note: the creator user is identified by the creator_user_id column present in the category_associations database table) because I need to display position values (note: the position attribute, an Integer, is required by the act_as_list gem and it is a column present in the category_associations database table) "near" each article title.
Practically speaking, in my view I would like to make something like the following in a proper and performant way (note: It is assumed that each article in #articles is "category-associated" by a user - the user refers to the mentioned creator user of category_associations):
<% #articles.each do |article| %>
<%= link_to(article.title, article_path(article)) %> (<%= # Display the article position in the given category %>)
<% end %>
Probably, I should "create" and "handle" a custom data structure (or, maybe, I should make some else...), but I do not how to proceed to accomplish what I am looking for.
At this time I am thinking that the eager loading is a good approach for my case because I could avoid the N + 1 queries problem since I have to state further conditions on association objects in order to:
retrieve specific attribute values (in my case those refer to position values) of association objects created by a given user;
"relate" (in some way, so that position values are suitable for displaing) each of those specific attribute values to the corresponding associated object.
I think, you are looking for this
#articles = Article.includes(:associated_categories)
This will eager load all your articles including both of its associations (associated_categories, associated_categories). Thus, it will avoid N+1 problem and wont fire queries when you iterate over #articles and its associations in your view.
I've been trying to switch my Orders model to a polymorphic association with my Product and Service models. However, I have a few questions that I haven't been able to find answers to, even after watching the RailsCast and reading the documentation (so, those suggestions are appreciated, but I need a more concrete answer).
Question:
Is a polymorphic association the best thing to use in this case? Prior to this, I was using a Transaction model that had multiple belongs_to associations and used a custom Parent function to determine which one it was. This was working fine, but someone suggested a polymorphic association may clean things up.
I set up the polymorphic association properly and have been unable to have the transactable_id and transactable_type automatically populated. The code is below. I have side-stepped this by manually putting them in inside the form, but if anyone knows the proper way to do it, that would be great!
How can I access elements with polymorphic associations? For example, in my Cart object (which has_many Transactions and which Transactions belongs_to) I can no longer access things using #cart.transactions.each do |t| ... #t.product.name type coding.
My model associations look like this:
class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :orderable, :polymorphic => true
end
class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :orders, :as => :orderable
end
My forms used to look like this:
<% form_for [#orderable, #order] do |f| %>
...
<% end %>
And were rendered like this in my Product Show view:
<%= render 'orders/form' %>
Now, I pass a variable for the product.id in the render partial and use it to populate the transactable_id field. But, I feel like that is very messy.
Again, I have read the tutorials and API docs and have been unable to solve this, so any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Answers to your questions:
If your business login implies that multiple models will have related model with the same fields so you should use polymorphic association. (In your case you can use it).
If set up polymorphic association Rails will automatically handle setting *_id and *_type fields depending on associated parent model.
Lets say you have Product with many orders in polymorphic association and you want to define which model order belongs to:
order = Order.first
order.orderable