I am trying to design model associations in rails
that consist of the following 3 types:
Commentator, Blogpost and Comment
--> it's "Commentator" and not "User" what means
that they are not the users who create blogposts...
instead they create comments only.
While the basic relationship between Commentator
and Comment is obvious:
class Commentator < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to: comments
I am not sure how to relate "Blogpost" to this...
--> I would like go be able to ask for all the Blogposts
a Commentator has left as well as all the Commentators
of a specific Blogpost.
Since this is a many-to-many relationship I
would use:
class Commentator < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments
has_many :blogposts, :through => :comments
class Blogpost < ActiveRecord::Base
"has_many :commentators, :through => :comments
When a commentator creates a blogpost, do I have to
write the commenentator_id and blogpost_id in comments
by myself into the corresponding fields of the comment table?
I think it would be better to have Blogposts as the
going through element since the relationship could be
automatically be build when a commentator creates a comment.
(apart from the fact that commentators cannot create comments
to Blogposts that do not exist...)
But then, Commentator to Comment would NOT be a many-to-many
relationship and I cannot use "has_many ... through" anymore.
What is a good way to relate this 3 types of models?
Solution to the stated problem
class Commentator < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments
has_many :blogposts, :through => :comments
end
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :commentator
belongs_to :blogpost
end
class Blogpost < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments
has_many :commentators, :through => :comments
belongs_to :user
class User
has_many :blogposts
end
To add a comment to an existing blog post (assuming we have a blog and commentator variables)
blog.comments.create(:commentator => commentator, :comment => "foo bar")
OR
commentator.comments.create(:blog => blog, :comment => "foo bar")
Note
Instead of using two models for users(i.e. User and Commenter), I would use one model and assign privileges
to distinguish between a commentor and a blog post writer.
class User
has_many :blogs
has_many :comments
has_many :commented_blogs, :through => :comments, :source => :blog
end
class Blog
has_many :comments
belongs_to :user
has_many :commenters, :through => :comments, :source => :user
end
class Comment
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :blog
end
Creating a blog entry:
if current_user.has_role?(:blog_writer)
current_user.blogs.create(params[:blog])
end
Adding a comment:
current_user.comments.create(:blog => blog, :content => "foor bar")
OR
blog.comments.create(:user => current_user, :content => "foor bar")
Related
I have a User model and a Book model joined with a Like model.
class Book < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
# the like associations
has_many :likes
has_many :liking_users, :through => :likes, :source => :user
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :books
# the like associations
has_many :likes
has_many :liked_books, :through => :likes, :source => :book
class Like < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :book
I want to add an attribute to the Like model so while right now a User can Like a book to add it to their profile, I want the User to be able to write a recommendation.
I generated the attribute Recommendation:text to the Like (joining) model, but am unsure how to add this to views so a User can write a recommendation that will be tied to the Like (and thus that book and user).
I'm looking at this post - Rails has_many :through Find by Extra Attributes in Join Model - which describes something similar but does not explain how to implement this in the views.
Let me know if you can point me in the right direction. Thanks!
I think you should create a separate model for this Recommendation, dependent of the Like model:
class Book < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
has_many :comments
has_many :commenters, :through => :comments, :source => :user
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :books
has_many :comments
has_many :commented_books, :through => :comments, :source => :book
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :book
Then, the logic to create a comment for a book:
# Books Controller
def show
#book = Book.find(params[:id])
#comment = #book.comments.build
end
# show view of the book
form_for #comment do |form|
form.hidden_field :user_id, value: current_user.id
form.hidden_field :book_id
form.text_area :content # the name of the attribute for the content of the comment
form.submit "Post comment!"
end
To list all the comments of a specific User:
# users controller (profile page)
def show
#user = User.find(params[:id])
end
# show view of Users
#user.comments.includes(:book).each do |comment|
"Comment on the book '#{comment.book.name}' :"
comment.content
end
I suppose that the like functionnality works with ajax ? (remote: :true or in pure javascript)
You can append a form with the response of your request with the id of the new like, and again handle the recommendation by an ajax request
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 :)
I'm fairly new to Rails and I'm trying to gain a better understanding of how to be leverage the Rails framework for my associations.
While it's not specific for my app, the structure is similar -- for my example, I'll use the standard blog associates.
Example Models:
class Author < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :posts, :through => :posts
end
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :author
has_many :comments
end
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :post
end
My challenge is that I want to select all comments that belong to a specific author. I understand how to reference post and author elements that are associated with a specific post:
comment_author = Comment.first
puts comment_author.post.author.name
But as I stated I'm trying to select all comments that belong to a specific author. I could accomplish this by doing a find_by_sql, but I want to ensure db independence and I want to do this the "Rails way."
Thanks!
You can use the has_many :through assocication:
class Author < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :posts
has_many :comments, :through => :posts
end
#Femaref provided the exact answer to your question and you should accept it. Mine is merely a complement.
If an author can leave comments on posts, here is what you might want to do:
class Author
has_many :posts
has_many :comments
has_many :responses, through: :posts, source: :comments
end
class Post
belongs_to :author
has_many :comments
end
class Comment
belongs_to :author
belongs_to :post
end
To get all the comments left by sophia: sophia.comments
To get all the comments left on sophia's posts: sophia.responses
See the options for has_many (especially through and source)
I have a situation where I have Products, Suppliers, ShoppingLists and Valuations.
A shopping_list consist of many valuations each with a product, an specific supplier and a price.
My models are as follows:
class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :valuations
has_many :shopping_lists, :through => :valuations
end
class Supplier < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :valuations
has_many :shopping_lists, :through => :valuations
end
class ShoppingList < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :valuations
has_many :products, :through => :valuations
has_many :suppliers, :through => :valuations
end
class Valuation < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :product
belongs_to :supplier
belongs_to :shopping_list
end
My routes.rb is:
map.resources :shopping_lists do |shopping_list|
shopping_list.resources :valuations
end
map.resources :product
map.resources :supplier
I wonder if this could be the best solution, anyway what I want is that the user can create as many lists as he wish, each with several valuations.
The first time a shopping list is created its also filled with one valuation at least. Then, the user can add/remove valuations to/from the shopping_list.
I would like a simple and elegant solution, without Ajax callbacks.
What is the best way to do this, from the controllers/views/routes perspectives?
Or should I completley change my schema ?
Thanks!
Just found two excelent resources from Ryan Bates:
http://asciicasts.com/episodes/196-nested-model-form-part-1
http://asciicasts.com/episodes/197-nested-model-form-part-2
Let's see if that do the job!
// UPDATE: Worked great!
My needs are very simple: I have a Tip table to receive comments and have comments to receive comments, too.
To retrieve each comment that is stored in the same table (comments), I created another key for the comments on comments: "inverse_comments".
I tried to use one comments table by using self-referntial association. Some resources seem to bring more than one table into the piture which are diffent from my needs. So I came up whth the following modeling for comments:
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :tip
belongs_to :user
has_many :mycomments,
:through => :inverse_comments,
:source => :comment
end
Apparently something is missing here but I cannot figure it out.
Could some one enlighten me on this:
what changes I need to do to make the model work?
thanks.
I believe you should use a polymorphic association.
For that you'll need to add a commentable_id and a commentable_type on your comments table. And your models should look like:
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :commentable, :polymorphic => true
has_many :comments, :as => :commentable
end
class Tip < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments, :as => :commentable
end
This way you can use
#tip.comments
#comment.comments