Should this has_many :through relationship be polymorphic or not? - ruby-on-rails

I have a many-to-many relationship setup for Teachers and Classrooms via has_many :through:
class Teacher < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :classrooms, :through => :classroom_memberships
end
class Classroom < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :students
has_many :teachers, :through => :classroom_memberships
end
class ClassroomMemberships < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :teacher
belongs_to :classroom
end
Currently, Students can only belong to one Classroom:
class Student < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :classroom
end
Now I have the need to track historical classroom memberships for students, creating a second many-to-many relationship for classrooms. So, while a student can only belong to one classroom at a time, I need to know that last year, student A belonged to classroom B.
I'm thinking I have two viable options:
1.) Make the classroom_memberships association polymorphic so I'd have a classroomable_id and classroomable_type that would point to either a teacher OR a student.
2.) Simplify things and add another foreign key to ClassroomMemberships called student_id, in which case, for a given row, either student_id OR teacher_id would have a value.
Which is the better option?

I would probably go the route of:
class Course < ActiveRecord::Base
# like "MATH 100"
has_many :sections
has_many :teachers, :through => :sections
end
class Term < ActiveRecord::Base
# like "Fall 2015"
has_many :sections
end
class Teacher < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :sections
has_many :courses, :through => :sections
end
class Section < ActiveRecord::Base
# a course, in a term, taught by a teacher, with registered students
belongs_to :term
belongs_to :course
belongs_to :teacher
has_many :registrations
has_many :students, :through => :registrations
end
class Registration < ActiveRecord::Base
# a student in a specific section
belongs_to :section
belongs_to :student
end
class Student < ActiveRecord::Base
# a student's registrations are their course history
has_many :registrations
has_many :sections, through :registrations
end
As a start, since this is a fairly basic modeling of an educational system.

It sounds like maybe you want a ClassroomMembershipHistory model.
Something like
class ClassroomMembershipHistory < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :student
belongs_to :classroom
end
with a year attribute, stored however is easiest to query for your use case.

Related

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)

has_many :through and has_many relationship between same 2 models

A list has one owner (a user). A list also has a number of panelists (also users). I have tried defining the relationships between the three models: User, List, and Panelist. But I'm getting nowhere.
user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :lists
has_many :panelMemberships, :through => :panelists, :source => :lists
end
list.rb
class List < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
has_many :panelMembers, :through => :panelists, :source => :user
end
panelist.rb
class Panelist < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :list
belongs_to :user
end
I've tried all different combinations but nothing seems to work. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
The model also has to have a has_many relationship for whatever the through model is, so wherever you have has_many :x, through: :y, you also need to say has_many :y. You also shouldn't have a panelist model separate from your user model if panelists are users (unless you're doing STI, which you're not). From what I understand, you're trying to do something like this:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :owned_lists, class_name: "List", foreign_key: :owner_id # this is for the owner/list relationship
has_and_belongs_to_many :lists # for the normal panelist / list relationship
end
class List < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :owner, class_name: "User"
has_and_belongs_to_many :users
end
Then you'll need to make a migration for a users_lists (with user id and list id) table which will be your join table but won't need its own model. But if you really want to keep the through relationship (good for if you do other stuff with the join model), then you'd do:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :owned_lists, class_name: "List", foreign_key: :owner_id # this is for the owner/list relationship
has_many :panel_memberships
has_many :lists, through: :panel_memberships
end
class List < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :owner, class_name: "User"
has_many :panel_memberships
has_many :users, through: :panel_memberships
end
class PanelMembership < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :list

Rails/Active Record polymorphic association needed?

I have 3 models, a School which has many Teachers and Students. The problem is that Students can belong to either a School or a Teacher, so theoretically they always belong to a School through association. How would I deal with this type of data structure in Rails/Active Record?
class School < AR::Base
has_many :teachers
has_many :students
end
class Teacher < AR::Base
belongs_to :school
has_many :students
end
class Student < AR::Base
belongs_to ???
end
This solution should work, but you I have a doubt about your introduction ; you say that "a teacher have many student". This sentences implies "a student has ONE teacher".
Maybe you should set an has_and_belongs_to_many association.
class School < AR::Base
has_many :teachers
has_many :students, :through => :teachers
end
class Teacher < AR::Base
belongs_to :school
has_many :students
end
class Student < AR::Base
belongs_to :teacher
belongs_to :school, :through => :teacher
end
Clearly you need polymarphic association, can be done as
class School < AR::Base
has_many :teachers
has_many :students, :as => :studentable
end
class Teacher < AR::Base
belongs_to :school
has_many :students
end
class Student < AR::Base
belongs_to :studentable
end
don't forget to add studentable_id and studentable_type to student model.

Rails associations - how can I set up associations for different varieties of users?

I'm creating a web app which consists of schools, courses, students, and teachers.
A school can have many courses and a course has one teacher and many students.
The problem I am running into is that a single user could be a teacher of one course, but a student in another course (or even a student or teacher in a course in a different school). I don't want to create a model for teachers and a separate model for students because I would like to track all my users in one place. There is an enrollment table which lists which users are enrolled as students in a course.
I would like to do something like the following:
class School < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :courses
has_many :students :through enrollments
has_many :teachers :through courses
end
class Course < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :teacher
belongs_to :school
has_many :students :through enrollments
end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :courses
has_many :schools
end
But if I have only a users table and not two separate students and teachers tables, this won't work.
Instead, I would have to do something like
class School < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :users [that are teachers]
has_many :users :through enrollments [that are students]
end
How can I set up my model and associations to make this work?
Thanks.
Use inheritance.
Teachers and students are inherited from the users model. You can consult http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html for further information. Be sure to create a "type" column or equivalent in your User table.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
end
class Student < User
end
class Teacher < User
end
Rails will treat them individually, but they will still exist in the User table.Let me know if you need further assistance
I may have missed something, but it should work if you add the class_name to your relation with "User":
class School < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :courses
has_many :students :through enrollments, :class_name => "User"
has_many :teachers :through courses, :class_name => "User"
end
class Course < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :teacher, :class_name => "User"
belongs_to :school
has_many :students :through enrollments, , :class_name => "User"
end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :courses
has_many :schools
end
Add a teachers_id column to courses and use belongs_to instead of has_one. Then add a class_name option.
class School < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :courses
has_many :students :through enrollments
has_many :teachers :through courses
end
class Course < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :teacher, :class_name => 'User'
belongs_to :school
has_many :students :through enrollments
end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :courses
has_many :schools, :through enrollments
has_many :teachers, :through :courses
end

How to set up associations in Ruby on Rails?

I'm building a sample app for practice and am having trouble determining the best way to organize my models and associations. So let's just say I have 3 models:
Schools
Classes
Students
I want:
schools to have many classes
classes to have many students
classes to belong to a school
students to be enrolled in many classes in many different schools
The associations are making me dizzy, I'm not sure which ones to use. Help would be greatly appreciated.
Renamed class to course, as the class name Class is already taken. A join class such as enrollments would handle your many to many course <=> student relationship.
class School
has_many :courses
end
class Course
belongs_to :school
has_many :enrollments
has_many :students, :through => :enrollments
end
class Student
has_many :enrollments
has_many :courses, :through => :enrollments
end
class Enrollment
belongs_to :course
belongs_to :student
end
Your models should looks like this:
class School < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :classes
has_many :students, :through => :classes
end
class Class < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :school
has_and_belongs_to_many :students
end
class Student < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :classes
end
Make sure your Student and Class tables have class_id and school_id columns respectively.
Also, Class is a reserved word in Rails, so it might cause problems (you might have to use a different name)
Though on first blush it would seem students should belong directly to class, class isn't really a true "has_and_belongs_to_many" replacement. For that I would use "enrollment". (Note with rails 3.1 you can now do nested :through calls.)
Here's a slightly more advanced implementation than the previous commenter's:
class School << ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :academic_classes
has_many :enrollments, :through => :academic_classes
has_many :students, :through => :enrollments, :uniq => true
end
class AcademicClass << ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :school
has_many :enrollments
end
class Enrollment << ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :academic_class
belongs_to :student
end
class Student << ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :enrollments
has_many :academic_classes, :through => :enrollments
has_many :schools, :through => :academic_classes, :uniq => true
end

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