A Person can have many Events and each Event can have one polymorphic Eventable record. How do I specify the relationship between the Person and the Eventable record?
Here are the models I have:
class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :person
belongs_to :eventable, :polymorphic => true
end
class Meal < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :event, :as => eventable
end
class Workout < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :event, :as => eventable
end
The main question concerns the Person class:
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :events
has_many :eventables, :through => :events # is this correct???
end
Do I say has_many :eventables, :through => :events like I did above?
Or do I have to spell them all out like so:
has_many :meals, :through => :events
has_many :workouts, :through => :events
If you see an easier way to accomplish what I'm after, I'm all ears! :-)
You have to do:
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :events
has_many :meals, :through => :events, :source => :eventable,
:source_type => "Meal"
has_many :workouts, :through => :events, :source => :eventable,
:source_type => "Workout"
end
This will enable you to do this:
p = Person.find(1)
# get a person's meals
p.meals.each do |m|
puts m
end
# get a person's workouts
p.workouts.each do |w|
puts w
end
# get all types of events for the person
p.events.each do |e|
puts e.eventable
end
Another option of this is to use a Single Table Inheritance (STI) or Multi Table Inheritance (MTI) pattern, but that requires some ActiveRecord/DB Table rework, but this may help others still finding this who are designing it for the first time.
Here is the STI method in Rails 3+:
Your Eventable concept becomes a class and needs a type column (which rails automatically populates for you).
class Eventable < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :event
end
Then, your other two classes inherit from Eventable instead of AR::Base
class Meal < Eventable
end
class Workout < Eventable
end
And your event object is basically the same, just not polymorphic:
class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :person
belongs_to :eventable
end
This may make some of your other layers more confusing, if you've never seen this before and you're not careful. For example, a single Meal object can be accessed at /meals/1 and /eventable/1 if you make both endpoints available in the routes, and you need to be aware of the class you're using when you pull an inherited object (hint: the becomes method may be very useful if you need to override the default rails behavior)
But this is a much cleaner deliniation of responsibilities as apps scale, in my experience. Just a pattern to consider.
Related
I'm familiar with using rails' polymorphic associations, where a model can be declared polymorphic to gain the capability of belonging to a multitude of other models, such as:
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :commentable, :polymorphic => true
end
class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments, :as => :commentable
end
class Photo < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments, :as => :commentable
end
class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments, :as => :commentable
end
Is there a common pattern to deal with the inverse case, where a model can have a multitude of other models that will be accessed through the same interface (e.g. a person has many pets, where pets can be either dogs, cats, etc.)? Should I just create a virtual attribute?
For your pets example, STI may be a solution:
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :pets
end
class Pet < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :owner, class_name: "Person", foreign_key: "person_id"
# Be sure to include a :type attribute for STI to work
end
class Dog < Pet
end
class Cat < Pet
end
This should still give you access to #person.pets and #dog.owner, #pet.owner, etc.
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 :)
The image shows part of my data model. I would like to fetch all items that are associated with a user (through organizations and items_group). How should I change the models and write this query in the controller? Using :through => organizations I can get all items_groups but I don't how to include one more relation to query related items.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :organizations
has_many :items_groups, :through => :organizations
end
class Organization < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :users
has_and_belongs_to_many :items_groups
has_many :items, :through => :items_groups
end
class ItemsGroup < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :items, :inverse_of => :items_group
has_and_belongs_to_many :organizations
has_many :users, :through => :organizations
end
I think you might have to do it back-to-front and find items joined back to your user.
You could define method like this in your User class:
def items
Item.joins(:items_group => {:organizations => :users}).where("users.id" => self.id).select("distinct items.*")
end
The items it returns will be read-only because of the explicit select but I think you'll want that to avoid returning individual items more than once.
If you set in your models the relationships this should work:
users.organizations.item_groups.items
Though for it to work your models should contain this:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :organizations, :through => :organization_users
end
class Organization < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :item_groups, :through => :items_groups_organizations
end
class ItemsGroup < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :item
end
Hope it works for you!
This seems to be a fairly common problem over here, yet there is no definitive solution. To restate once again, say I have a model:
def Model < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :somethings, ...
has_many :otherthings, ...
end
The question is then how to add a third association :combined that combines the two? I know this can be done with :finder_sql and similar result can be achieved with a scope, but neither of these gives me an actual association. The whole point of this is to be able to use it for another association with :through and things like Model.first.combined.some_scope.count
EDIT: the relevant portions of the actual code
class Donation < ActiveRecord::Base
# either Project or Nonprofit
belongs_to :donatable, :polymorphic => true
belongs_to :account
end
class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :nonprofit
end
class Nonprofit < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :projects
# donations can be either direct or through a project
# the next two associations work fine on their own
# has_many :donations, :as => :donatable, :through => :projects
# has_many :donations, :as => :donatable
has_many :donations, .... # how do I get both here,
has_many :supporters, :through => :donations # for this to work?
end
Thanks.
If Something and Otherthing are sufficiently similar, use STI:
def Model < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :somethings
has_many :otherthings
has_many :genericthings
end
def Genericthing < Activerecord::Base
# put a string column named "type" in the table
belongs_to :model
end
def Something < Genericthing
end
def Otherthing < Genericthing
end
First I'm using Rails 3.1 from the 3-1-stable branch updated an hour ago.
I'm developing an application where I have 3 essential models User, Company and Job, Here's the relevant part of the models:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :companies_users, class_name: "CompaniesUsers"
has_many :companies, :through => :companies_users, :source => :company
end
class Company < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :companies_users, class_name: "CompaniesUsers"
has_many :employees, :through => :companies_users, :source => :user
has_many :jobs, :dependent => :destroy
end
class Job < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :company, :counter_cache => true
end
class CompaniesUsers < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :company
belongs_to :user
end
The code works just fine, but I have been wondering if it's possible to:
I want to link a job with an employer, so think of this scenario: A user John who's an employee at Example, he posted the job Rails Developer, so I want to access #job.employer and it should get me back the user John, in other words:
#user = User.find_by_name('john')
#job = Job.find(1)
#job.employer == #user #=> true
So I thought of two possible solutions
First solution
class Job
has_one :employer, :through => :employers
end
class User
has_many :jobs, :through => :employers
end
class Employer
belongs_to :job
belongs_to :user
end
Second solution
class Job
has_one :employer, :class_name => "User"
end
class User
belongs_to :job
end
Which route should I go? Is my code right ?
I have another question, how to get rid of the class_name => "CompaniesUsers" option passed to has_many, should the class be Singular or Plural ? Should I rename it to something like Employees ?
P.S: I posted the same question to Ruby on Rails: Talk
Unless I'm missing something, I'd suggest simply doing
class Job
belongs_to :employer, :class_name => "User"
end
class User
has_many :jobs
end
This would give you methods like
user = User.first
user.jobs.create(params)
user.jobs # array
job = user.jobs.first
job.employer == user # true
You'll need an employer_id integer field in your Jobs table for this to work.
Typically you want to name your pass through model:
company_user
Then you don't need this:
class_name: "CompaniesUsers"
Just make sure the name of your database table is:
company_users
What you have works for you, so that's great. I just find when I don't follow convention I
run in to trouble down the road.