has_many through roles and scopes on the third model - ruby-on-rails

Lets say I have movies, people and movies_people
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :movies_people
has_many :movies, through: :movies_people
class Movies < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :movies_people
has_many :people, through: :movies_people
class MoviesPerson < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :movie
belongs_to :person
end
The table movies_people has a role attribute, where I want to store the person's job in the movie. Right now I can do things like this in the console:
u = User.first
m = Movie.first
m.people << u
then find the right movies_people entry and set 'role'
retrieving looks like this:
m.people.where(movies_people: {role: :actor})
Whats the best way to:
Save the role (to the third table) when joining people to movies?
Return all the actors in a movie vs. all the directors vs. all the writers?

One solution is to create Roles which contains a list of existing roles and a MovieRole
class which joins Movies, People and Roles.
class Movie < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :movie_roles, class_name: "MovieRole"
has_many :roles, through: :movie_roles
has_many :people, through: :movie_roles
end
class People < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :movie_roles, class_name: "MovieRole"
has_many :movies, through: :movie_roles
has_many :roles, through: :movie_roles
end
class Role < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :movie_roles, class_name: "MovieRole"
has_many :people, through: :movie_roles
has_many :movies, through: :movie_roles
end
class MovieRole < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :movie
belongs_to :people
belongs_to :role
end
All the relations are stores in movie_roles which is a three way join table:
class CreateMovieRoles < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
create_table :movie_roles do |t|
t.references :movie, index: true
t.references :people, index: true
t.references :role, index: true
t.timestamps
end
end
end
Some examples of how you could query this association:
#roles = Movie.find_by(title: 'Godzilla').roles
#directors = People.joins(:roles).where(roles: {name: 'Director'})
#directed_by_eastwood = Movie.joins(:people, :roles)
.merge(Role.where(name: 'Director'))
.merge(People.where(name: 'Clint Eastwood'))
Added:
To associate a person with a movie you would:
MovieRole.create(people: person, movie: movie, role: role)
But you will want to setup convinience methods like:
class People < ActiveRecord::Base
def add_role(role, movie)
role = Role.find_by(name: role) unless role.is_a?(Role)
MovieRole.create(people: self, movie: movie, role: role)
end
end
class Movie < ActiveRecord::Base
def add_cast(role, person)
role = Role.find_by(name: role) unless role.is_a?(Role)
MovieRole.create(people: person, movie: self, role: role)
end
end

To save the role, just:
person = Person.find(person_id)
movie = Movie.find(movie_id)
movie.movies_people.create(person: person, role: :actor)
To retrieve by role,
movie = Movie.includes(:people).where(id: movie_id).where(movies_people: {role: :actor})
Edit: I don't advice to add a roles table, unless you need it. I follow the agile principles, in this case: "Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential."

Related

Extracting data using rails query from a join table

I have users table, books table and books_users join table. In the users_controller.rb I am trying extract the users who have filtered_books. Please help me to resolve that problem.
user.rb
has_many :books_users, dependent: :destroy
has_and_belongs_to_many :books, join_table: :books_users
book.rb
has_and_belongs_to_many :users
books_user.rb
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :book
users_controller.rb
def filter_users
#filtered_books = Fiction.find(params[:ID]).books
#users = **I want only those users who have filtered_books**
end
has_and_belongs_to_many does not actually use a join model. What you are looking for is has_many through:
class User < ApplicationRecord
has_many :book_users
has_many :books, through: :book_users
end
class Book < ApplicationRecord
has_many :book_users
has_many :users, through: :book_users
end
class BookUser < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :book
belongs_to :user
end
If you want to add categories to books you would do it by adding a Category model and another join table. Not by creating a Fiction model which will just create a crazy amount of code duplication if you want multiple categories.
class Book < ApplicationRecord
has_many :book_users
has_many :users, through: :book_users
has_many :book_categories
has_many :categories, through: :book_categories
end
class BookCategory < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :book
belongs_to :category
end
class Category < ApplicationRecord
has_many :book_categories
has_many :books, through: :book_categories
end
If you want to query for users that follow a certain book you can do it by using an inner join with a condition on books:
User.joins(:books)
.where(books: { title: 'Lord Of The Rings' })
If you want to get books that have a certain category:
Book.joins(:categories)
.where(categories: { name: 'Fiction' })
Then for the grand finale - to query users with a relation to at least one book that's categorized with "Fiction" you would do:
User.joins(books: :categories)
.where(categories: { name: 'Fiction' })
# or if you have an id
User.joins(books: :categories)
.where(categories: { id: params[:category_id] })
You can also add an indirect association that lets you go straight from categories to users:
class Category < ApplicationRecord
# ...
has_many :users, though: :books
end
category = Category.includes(:users)
.find(params[:id])
users = category.users
See:
The has_many :through Association
Joining nested assocations.
Specifying Conditions on Joined Tables
From looking at the code i am assuming that Book model has fiction_id as well because of the has_many association shown in this line Fiction.find(params[:ID]).books. There could be two approaches achieve this. First one could be that you use #filtered_books variable and extract users from it like #filtered_books.collect {|b| b.users}.flatten to extract all the users. Second approach could be through associations using fiction_id which could be something like User.joins(:books).where(books: {id: #filtererd_books.pluck(:id)})

Ownership conditional in a belongs_to association

I have two models: Users and Posts. The way I have things setup, a post belongs to an owner (i.e. user) and also has many participants (i.e. users). In my User model I'd like to ensure that an owner never belongs to a post. I've done this in the front-end but found more code than need-be.
This led me to believe that using conditions would be an ideal solution. I've seen SQL conditions used in this manner but didn't know exactly what the best way to get this done for an ownership scenario. Suggestions?
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :posts
# belongs_to :posts, conditions: ...
end
class Post
has_many :participants, class_name: "User", foreign_key: "user_id"
belongs_to :owner, class_name: "User", foreign_key: "user_id"
end
To acheive this, I think you need a third model. If you set things up as follows it should work:
User model:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :posts # This is the other side of your owner association
has_many :user_posts # This is your link table for participants
has_many :participations, through: :user_posts, source: :user # These are the posts the user is a participant in
end
Post model:
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :user_posts, ->(p) { where.not(user_id: p.user_id) } # Here is your condition for the participants
has_many :participants, through: :user_posts, source: :user
belongs_to :owner, class_name: "User", foreign_key: "user_id"
end
UserPost model:
class UserPost < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :post
end
As #Oxynum's answer makes clear, you should also think about putting a validation in the UserPost model to prevent the participant from being saved if he is also the owner:
validate :participant_cannot_be_owner
def participant_cannot_be_owner
if user == post.try(:owner)
errors.add(:user_id, "can't be the owner of the post")
end
end
First, there is probably an error in your associations, cause it seems like you need a join table for the participants relationship.
You should probably use a http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html#the-has-many-through-association
has_many through association.
Something like this :
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :owned_post, class_name: "Post", foreign_key: :owner_id
has_many :participations
has_many :posts, through: :participations
end
class Participation < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :post
belongs_to :participant, class_name: "User"
end
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :owner, class_name: "User"
has_many :participants, through: :participations
end
When you have this model, you can use a validation on the participation model to prevent an owner to be a participant. By using a custom validation : http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_validations.html#performing-custom-validations
class Participation < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :post
belongs_to :participant, class_name: "User"
validate :participant_is_not_the_owner
def participant_is_not_the_owner
if participant == post.owner
errors.add(:participant, "can't be the owner")
end
end
end

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

Getting Association through self-inheriting STI model

In my Rails app I have Users and Forms.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :admin_roles
#desired association below
#has_many :forms, through: :admin_roles
end
class Form < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :department
end
The Users need to administrate the Forms through any level of an Organization.
class AdminRole < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :organization
belongs_to :user
end
If assigned to a non-department organization the forms they have control over should come through the child departments.
The Forms are assigned to a departmental level only.
My model for the Organization is an STI model of 3 levels: market>subdomain>department
class Organization < ActiveRecord::Base
self.inheritance_column = :org_level
has_many :admin_roles
end
class Department < Organization
belongs_to :sub_domain, primary_key: :id, foreign_key: :parent_id
has_many :forms
end
class SubDomain < Organization
belongs_to :market, primary_key: :id, foreign_key: :parent_id
has_many :departments
end
class Market < Organization
has_many :sub_domains
end
The desired capability is to do user.forms and get all the associated forms back.
For example: Given there was a hierarchy of FooMarket>BarDomain>LoremDepartment
and a Form associated to LoremDepartment.
If a User is then tied to any of those 3 Organizations through the AdminRole it would allow for the return of the LoremDepartment Form.
Do you have to necessarily do it with associations ? u can always define an instance method in user model and back track it to forms.
But before that, just a reminder, you have to mention the foreign key in both the models for the association to work both ways.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
attr_accessible :name
has_many :admin_roles
has_many :organizations, :through => :admin_roles
def forms
organizations.map(&:forms).flatten.uniq
end
end
class Department < Organization
belongs_to :sub_domain, primary_key: :id, foreign_key: :parent_id
has_many :forms, :foreign_key => :organization_id
end
class SubDomain < Organization
belongs_to :market, primary_key: :id, foreign_key: :parent_id
has_many :departments, foreign_key: :parent_id
def forms
departments.map(&:forms).flatten
end
end
class Market < Organization
has_many :sub_domains, foreign_key: :parent_id
def forms
sub_domains.map(&:forms).flatten
end
end
I tested this and it does work. But kinda round about.

Rails model associations, has_many :through and has_one with the same model

I have two models: User and State. The state model has records for each of the 50 states in the United States.
I would like each User to have two attributes: one "home" state, and many states to "visit".
I know I have to set up some sort of model associations to achieve this, but not sure what the best approach is.
Here's what I have so far, but I know there must be something wrong with have has_many and has_one association to the same model.
#user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :visits
has_many :states, :through => :visits
has_one :state
end
#visit.rb
class Visit < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :state
end
#state.rb
class State < ActiveRecord::Base
has many :visits
has many :users, :through => :visits
belongs_to :user
end
Any suggestions?
In my opinion what you already have is almost right, except you would store the home state foreign key on the user like thus:
# user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :state
has_many :visits
has_many :states, through: visits
end
# visit.rb
class Visit < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :state
end
# state.rb
class State < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :visits
has_many :users, through: :visits
end
You would then access the home state like thus:
u = User.first
u.state
And the visited states, like thus:
u = User.first
u.states
For programming clarity, you can rename your relations:
# user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :home_state, class_name: "State"
has_many :visits
has_many :visited_states, class_name: "State", through: visits
end
# state.rb
class State < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :residents, class_name: "User"
has_many :visits
has_many :visitors, class_name: "User", through: :visits
end
Your domain model would make more sense:
u = User.first
u.home_state
u.visited_states
s = State.first
s.residents
s.visitors
I expect you'll probably want to store additional information about the visit, so keeping the HMT join table for the Visit model will allow you to do this, rather than going with a HABTM relation. You could then add attributes to the visit:
# xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_create_visits.rb
class CreateVisits < ActiveRecord::Migration
def change
create_table :visits do |t|
t.text :agenda
t.datetime commenced_at
t.datetime concluded_at
t.references :state
t.references :user
end
end
end
You can't have a has_many and has_one relationship on a single model, in this case state. One solution is to:
create a static model of states, they do not need to be a database model, they could be a static variable on the state model: US_STATES = {'1' => 'AK', '2' => 'AL', etc} or you could use fixtures to load a table of states into the database (more complicated because you need to use a rake task or the db:seed task to load the fixtures into the db, but nice because you can use active record to manage the model).
then you can provide a home_state_id on the user model that defines the home_state and the visits are simply a join between user_id and the state_id.
I would like each User to have two attributes: one "home" state, and many states to "visit".
In your models, a state may only be home to one user (belongs_to).
The correct semantics would be
class User < AR::Base
belongs_to :home_state, :class_name => "State", :foreign_key => "home_state_id", :inverse_of => :users_living
has_and_belongs_to_many :visited_states, :through => :visits
# ...
end
class State < AR::Base
has_many :users_living, :class_name => "User", :inverse_of => :home_state
# ...
end

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