HABTM relationships with polymorphism - ruby-on-rails

I've got a Person who can be linked to many Structures (structure is polymorphic)
I've got a Venue, who can have many People, as a structure.
I've got a Journal, who can have many People, as a structure.
Here is my modelization :
class Venue < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :structure_people, :as => :structure
has_many :people, :through => :structure_people
end
class Journal < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :structure_people, :as => :structure
has_many :people, :through => :structure_people
end
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :structure_people
has_many :structures, :through => :structure_people
end
class StructurePerson < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :structure, polymorphic: true
belongs_to :person
end
My problem :
when i try to get people on a Venue or on a Journal, it works. Cool :)
BUT
when i try to get structures on a person, i've got an error :
ActiveRecord::HasManyThroughAssociationPolymorphicSourceError: Cannot have a has_many :through association 'Person#structures' on the polymorphic object 'Structure#structure'.
Anyone could help me to solve this ?
Thanks a lot.
Christophe

I think it's a restriction of Rails, because has_many association will guess a class_name automatically. But polymorphic association may returns multiple class_name. Do you mind use this:
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :structure_people
has_many :venues, :through => :structure_people
#Journal is the same.
end
class StructurePerson < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :structure, polymorphic: true
belongs_to :venue, :foreign_key => 'structure_id', :conditions => {:structure_type => 'Venue'}
belongs_to :person
end
Although it is an ugly solution...
I think you can choose an alternative way.
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :structure_people
def structures
structure_people.map(&:structure)
end
end
You can't get chaining function of has_many, but you can get polymorphic structures :)

Related

How do you model "Likes" in rails?

I have 3 models: User, Object, Likes
Currently, I have the model: a user has many Objects. How do I go about modeling:
1) A user can like many objects
2) an Object can have many likes (from different users)
So I want to be able to do something like this:
User.likes = list of objects liked by a user
Objects.liked_by = list of Users liked by object
The model below is definitely wrong...
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :objects
has_many :objects, :through => :likes
end
class Likes < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :object
end
class Objects < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :users
has_many :users, :through => :likes
end
To elaborate further on my comment to Brandon Tilley's answer, I would suggest the following:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
# your original association
has_many :things
# the like associations
has_many :likes
has_many :liked_things, :through => :likes, :source => :thing
end
class Like < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :thing
end
class Thing < ActiveRecord::Base
# your original association
belongs_to :user
# the like associations
has_many :likes
has_many :liking_users, :through => :likes, :source => :user
end
You are close; to use a :through, relation, you first must set up the relationship you're going through:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :likes
has_many :objects, :through => :likes
end
class Likes < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :object
end
class Objects < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :likes
has_many :users, :through => :likes
end
Note that Objects should has_many :likes, so that the foreign key is in the right place. (Also, you should probably use the singular form Like and Object for your models.)
Here is a simple method to achieve this. Basically, you can create as many relationships as needed as long as you specify the proper class name using the :class_name option. However, it is not always a good idea, so make sure only one is used during any given request, to avoid additional queries.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :likes, :include => :obj
has_many :objs
has_many :liked, :through => :likes, :class_name => 'Obj'
end
class Like < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :obj
end
class Obj < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
has_many :likes, :include => :user
has_many :users, :through => :likes
# having both belongs to and has many for users may be confusing
# so it's better to use a different name
has_many :liked_by, :through => :likes, :class_name => 'User'
end
u = User.find(1)
u.objs # all objects created by u
u.liked # all objects liked by u
u.likes # all likes
u.likes.collect(&:obj) # all objects liked by u
o = Obj.find(1)
o.user # creator
o.users # users who liked o
o.liked_by # users who liked o. same as o.users
o.likes # all likes for o
o.likes.collect(&:user)
Models & associations as per naming conventions of rails modeling
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :likes
has_many :objects, :through => :likes
end
class Like < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :object
end
class Object < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
has_many :likes
has_many :users, :through => :likes
end
Also, you can use of already built-in gems like acts-as-taggable-on to have same functionality without code :)

Trouble with has_many :through => association

Caution: I am a 4 week old at programming. I am having trouble with a has_many :through => relationship between my Neighborhood and Cta_train models.
Here are my models:
class CtaTrain < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :Ctaline
has_and_belongs_to_many :searches
has_many :neighborhoods, :through => :CtaLocation, :foreign_key => :neighborhood_id
has_many :CtaLocations
end
class Neighborhood < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :geopoints
has_many :listings
has_many :properties
has_and_belongs_to_many :searches
has_many :CtaTrains, :through => :CtaLocation, :foreign_key => :cta_train_id
has_many :CtaLocations
end
class CtaLocation < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :neighborhood
belongs_to :CtaTrain
end
When I try to do this:
neighborhood.CtaTrains
I get this error:
ActiveRecord::HasManyThroughAssociationNotFoundError (Could not find the association :CtaLocation in model Neighborhood):
I have been slogging through this for several hours now....I have tried many iterations of ideas from stackoverflow....what I show above feels like the closest solution, but obviously still not working. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
I think the problem is that you're not following Rails conventions by using lowercase/underscore for your symbols. Class names have to be CamelCase but you should be doing the following everywhere else:
class CtaTrain < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :cta_line
has_and_belongs_to_many :searches
has_many :neighborhoods, :through => :cta_locations, :foreign_key => :neighborhood_id
has_many :cta_locations
end
*Update: You should also be using :cta_locations (plural) in your has many through

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

Combining Polymorphic Associations with Rich Many-to-Many Associations

Right now I have a rich many-to-many association with VideoVote as the independent record.
class VideoVote < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :video
end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :video_votes
has_many :voted_videos,
:through => :video_votes,
:source => :video
end
class Video < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :video_votes
has_many :voted_users,
:through => :video_votes,
:source => :user
end
However, I want to trasform this into a polymorphic association where comments can also have many VideoVotes (I realize this is confusing, so I should probably change it to Votes). (also, a video will have many comments.) How should I do this?
You first want to add voteable_id:integer and voteable_type:string to your video_votes table.
Then your models will look like:
class VideoVote < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :voteable, :polymorphic => true
end
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :video_votes, :as => :voteable
#code
end
class Video < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :video_votes, :as => :voteable
#code
end
Then you can access them just like any other has_many:
#video.video_votes
#comment.video_votes
#etc.

Is it possible to implement has_many, :through with ActiveScaffold?

Consider the following models:
class Artist < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :artist_events
has_many :events, :through => :artist_events
end
class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :artist_events
has_many :artists, :through => :artist_events, :order => 'artist_events.position'
end
class ArtistEvent < ActiveRecord::Base
default_scope :order => 'position'
belongs_to :artist
belongs_to :event
acts_as_list :scope => :artist
end
Is is possible to use ActiveScaffold to administer this type of relationship? The ArtistEvent model exists to define a hbtm relationship with additional attribute of position.
Thanks!
Jonathan
yes. after all, ArtistEvent is yet another model - and active scaffold can operate on it as long as you have routes and controllers on the join model.

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