I'm looking to create a simple relationship model with the following:
I have 2 main items. Product / WishList
The relationship between them is pretty straight forward a WishList has_many :products and a Product belongs_to_many :wishlists
I understand that there isn't a belongs_to_many association and as simple as this may be I can't seem to wrap my head around the right relationship model.
If someone could suggest a nice way to achieve this it would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
You have a choice between a has_many :through and a has_and_belong_to_many relation.
Pick the first one if you need to attach other attributes to the model that will be the bridge (for instance a position, if you want to order your wishlist), or the second one otherwise (more about that here)
So it could look like so
class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :items
has_many :wishlists, through: :items
end
class Item < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :product
belongs_to :wishlist
end
class Wishlist < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :items
has_many :products, through: :items
end
Related
So currently i have in a app:
class Post < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :category
end
and
class Category < ApplicationRecord
has_many :posts
end
which works fine as expected. However, i need to add multiple categories to a post . I thought about using has_many_and_belongs_to for each of them to acquire this but some trouble implementing this. It seems like a need to add an join table? If so, how would one look like with the setup shown above?
Any ideas?
I appreciate any input! Thanks in advance!
The table should be named categories_posts (categories comes first because of alphabetical sequence) and contain post_id and category_id integer columns (indexed, most probably). The it's as simple as:
class Post < ApplicationRecord
has_and_belongs_to_many :categories
end
class Category < ApplicationRecord
has_and_belongs_to_many :posts
end
You can create join table adding migration using:
rails g migration CreateJoinTableCategoryPost category post
Alternatively you can use has_many :through to have more control over a join table.
Advantages of using :through for many to many relationships
With has_many :through relationship you can have a model which will allow you to add validation, callbacks.
If you initially take some extra efforts to setup many to many relationship using through it can save a lot of time and headache in future
What if in future you want save the more information on join table like some custom sort, information about how the tables are associated which will not be allowed with has_and_belongs_to_many
Example
class Post < ApplicationRecord
has_many :categories, through: :post_categories
has_many :post_categories
end
class Category < ApplicationRecord
has_many :posts, through: :post_categories
has_many :post_categories
end
Adding relationship model with rails generator command
rails g model post_category category_id:integer post_id:integer custom:text
class PostCategory < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :category
belongs_to :post
end
I have four interrelated models: restaurants, menus, sections, and dishes. The dishes have_and_belong_to_many sections and ultimately are at the very bottom of the association chain. In my app I often need to reference the restaurant of the dish multiple times.
I know to accomplish this I'd need create a cascade of HMT associations. My question is, is it ideal to setup a belongs_to relationship between a restaurant and dish to avoid the multiple queries or leave as is? As of now this just feels dirty (may just be me though).
class Restaurant < ApplicationRecord
has_many :menus, dependent: :destroy
has_many :dishes, through: :menus
end
class Menu < ApplicationRecord
has_many :sections, dependent: :destroy
has_many :dishes, through: :sections
belongs_to :restaurant
end
class Section < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :menu
has_and_belongs_to_many :dishes
end
class Dish < ApplicationRecord
has_and_belongs_to_many :sections
end
The denormalization you propose here seems reasonable to me given your use case. As always, the performance gains of denormalization must be weighed against the complexity it introduces, especially the need to write code to ensure that a the restaurant a dish belongs to is always the same restaurant its section's menu belongs to.
I guess my approach would be: Retain the normalized data model until you have an actual performance problem that needs to be addressed. Then you can consider denormalizing to address it.
While you are still have the cascade of HMTs, consider writing delegators to make the code as clean as if you had a direct restaurant-dish association. I'm thinking:
class Dish < ApplicationRecord
delegate :restaurant, to: :section
end
class Section < ApplicationRecord
delegate :restaurant, to: :menu
end
Then you can do:
dish.restaurant
I have two models: Orders and Items. This is a many to many relationship, but I'm unsure if HMT is correct
Order model:
-user_id
-transaction_cost
-delivery_time
Item model:
-price
-name
Orders should be able to get all items in the order
Items do not need to be able to get all orders
The convention on this is to use the names of both models. A good name might be ItemOrders. Has many through is almost certainly a correct choice here.
class Order < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :item_orders, dependent: :destroy
has_many :items, through: :item_orders
end
class Item < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :item_orders, dependent: :destroy
has_many :orders, through: :item_orders
end
class ItemOrder < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :item
belongs_to :order
end
Now you just have another ActiveRecord model, and you can add to it as you'd like. It will also be helpful for debugging. You can even use a model/scaffold generator to generate these:
rails g model item_order order:references item:references
This way you get the migrations correct right away. Nothing needs to be altered on your other models except for the above code.
So I'm Rails n00b and I want to create a "favorites" relationship such that a User can have many favorite Item. I'm not entirely sure how to do this, this is how I'm going to try but I'm not sure if this is a good practice at all:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :favorites
//other code
end
class Favorite < ActiveRecord::Base
belong_to :user
has_one :item
end
class Item < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :item
end
Is this a good way to do it? Should I be using has_and_belongs_to_many ?
I'm specially concerned in the following scenario: Say a user has 100 favorite items.
When I do a User.find(id) will I also be retrieving the 100 favorites and the 100 Items?
In case it's important: ruby version 1.9.3, rails version 3.2.11
Can you try has_many => :through?
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :favorites
has_many :items, :through => :favorites
//other code
end
In your case has_many :through is definitely the way to go. I would recommend reading: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html
Of particular interest with regard to your question:
2.8 Choosing Between has_many :through and has_and_belongs_to_many
Rails offers two different ways to declare a many-to-many relationship between models. The simpler way is to use has_and_belongs_to_many, which allows you to make the association directly:
class Assembly < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :parts
end
class Part < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :assemblies
end
The second way to declare a many-to-many relationship is to use has_many :through. This makes the association indirectly, through a join model:
class Assembly < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :manifests
has_many :parts, :through => :manifests
end
class Manifest < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :assembly
belongs_to :part
end
class Part < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :manifests
has_many :assemblies, :through => :manifests
end
The simplest rule of thumb is that you should set up a has_many :through relationship if you need to work with the relationship model as an independent entity. If you don’t need to do anything with the relationship model, it may be simpler to set up a has_and_belongs_to_many relationship (though you’ll need to remember to create the joining table in the database).
You should use has_many :through if you need validations, callbacks, or extra attributes on the join model.
It is better than using has_and_belongs_to_many.
When I do a User.find(id) will I also be retrieving the 100 favorites
and the 100 Items?
No. You'll just get the user object.
Update:
Calling User.include(:favourites, :items).find(id) will get you joined tables in case you want to make many calls to items table from user object.
I have a User model
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :projects
end
and I have a Project model
class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
end
Obviously right now each project is owned by a user and there can only be one user per project. I now want to make my models represent another relation between the two models. I want a User to be able to follow multiple Projects, no matter who owns the Project. I know that I am going to have to use a has_many :through and create a join, but I cant wrap my head around how to change the model to keep my current relationship and add the new relationship.
Well, in that case, in your show/index action display all the projects (Project.all) in your project table. This way all users have access to all the projects. Now, in your edit action, use user.projects.all to display projects of that particular user. That should solve your problem, I don't see the need of any further association here.
Update:
This should suffice:
class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :projects_followed, :through => :projects
user has_many :projects_owned, :through => :projects
If you don't wish to create two more relations, create just one:class ProjectsSubscribed
belongs_to :project with three fields: project_id, is_owned, is_followed
Try following relation.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :followers
has_many :projects, :through => :followers
end
class Follower < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :project
end
class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :followers
has_many :users, :through => :followers
end
Note it:
You can use has_many :through relationship if you need to work with the relationship model as an independent entity. If you don’t need to do anything with the relationship model, it may be simpler to set up a has_and_belongs_to_many relationship.
Hope it is helpful.