how to use array variables inside action in controller - ruby-on-rails

Question

I want to fetch all posts posted by those users who have gone to same college as the current users...So inside my welcome controller i have written following code..
class WelcomesController < ApplicationController
def index
#col = Education.select(:college_id).where(:user_id => #current_user)
#user = Education.select(:user_id).where(:college_id => #col)
#welcome = Welcome.where(:user_id => #user)
end
end
Following is my shema code for welcome and education model:
create_table "welcomes", :force => true do |t|
t.text "message"
t.integer "user_id"
end
create_table "educations", :force => true do |t|
t.integer "college_id"
t.integer "user_id"
end
#col = Education.select(:college_id).where(:user_id => #current_user)....this line returns college ids associated with current logged in user.This is working perfectly on my console which is returning following output..
[#<Education college_id: 1>, #<Education college_id: 2>]
but i dont know how to use this output in my next line,so i have written this statement which should return all the users whose college id is the output of prevous statement
#user = Education.select(:user_id).where(:college_id => #col)
and my last line should return all the posts posted by those users whose ids are inside the #user array:
#welcome = Welcome.where(:user_id => #user)
but this is not working.When i run my project i cant see any output on my page and on console i am getting following output :
SELECT welcomes.* FROM welcomes WHERE (welcomes.user_id IN (NULL))
which means its not getting any user ids..
How can i solve this ...

Answer 1

You can try this:
#col = Education.select(:college_id).where(:user_id => #current_user.id).all
#users = Education.select(:user_id).where(:college_id => #col.collect(&:college_id)).all
#welcome = Welcome.where(:user_id => #users.collect(&:user_id)).all

Answer 2

The best way I see to accomplish this is to set up a has_many_and_belongs_to_many relationship between your User and Education models. (Each Education will have many Users and each User may have multiple Eductions.) You will need to create a joining table in your database to support this type of relationship - see the Rails Guide for more information on this.
I would set up your models in this manner:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :welcome
has_and_belongs_to_many :educations
end
class Education < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :users
end
class Welcome < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
end
The join table for the has_many_and_belongs_to_many join table migration (be sure to double check this code, not sure I got this exactly right):
def self.up
create_table 'education_user', :id => false do |t|
t.column :education_id, :integer
t.column :user_id, :integer
end
end
Your controller code is now much simpler and looks like this:
#welcomes = #current_user.eductions.users.welcome.all
In your view:
<% #welcomes.each do |welcome| %>
<p><%= welcome.message %></p>
<% end %>
One of the more powerful features of Ruby on Rails is the model relationships. They are a little more work up front, but if you take the time to set them up correctly they can make your life much easier, as is evidenced by the simplified #welcomes query above.

Answer 3

I'd recommend you to make relation between User and Collage
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :educations
has_many :colleges, :through => :educations
has_many :posts
scope :by_college_id, lambda {|cid| where("exists (select educations.id from educations where educations.user_id = users.id AND educations.college_id in (?) limit 1)", Array.wrap(cid)) }
def college_mates
self.class.by_college_id(self.college_ids).where("users.id != ?", id)
end :through => :educations
end
class Education < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :college
end
So now in your controller you can write
class WelcomesController < ApplicationController
def index
#posts = #current_user.college_mates.includes(:posts).map(&:posts).flatten
# or
#posts = Post.where(user_id: #current_user.college_mates.map(&:id))
end
end
Second variant generates 3 sql-requests, first variant - only two. But this is same work with data, I think time will be also same. Usually controllers contain only few lines of code, all logic written in models. Ideally controller should contain only Post.by_college_mates_for(#curren_user.id)