Relationship Type in Rails - ruby-on-rails

Hi I am very new rails , would need some help , there is nothing similar I could find , i watch all the rail casts on the similar lines.
So I have a article model and user model ( devise ) .
I would to user to add article either in Follow Mode or Just Read Later Mode.
so UserArticleAssociation has article_id , user_id and association type . I am not understanding how to implement this feature correctly. I could make some hack to do these , but I don't want to.
Any tutorial on similar will be great help.

Try this:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :user_articles
has_many :read_user_articles, :class_name => "UserArticle",
:conditions => {:mode => "read"}
has_many :follow_user_articles, :class_name => "UserArticle",
:conditions => {:mode => "follow"}
has_many :articles, :through => :user_articles
has_many :read_articles, :through => :read_user_articles, :source => :article
has_many :follow_articles,:through => :follow_user_articles,:source => :article
end
# Add a column called mode of type string (follow, read)
class UserArticle < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :article
end
class Article < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :user_articles
has_many :read_user_articles, :class_name => "UserArticle",
:conditions => {:mode => "read"}
has_many :follow_user_articles, :class_name => "UserArticle",
:conditions => {:mode => "follow"}
has_many :readers, :through => :read_user_articles, :source => :user
has_many :followers,:through => :follow_user_articles,:source => :user
end
Now you can do the following:
To add an article to read/follow category:
user.read_articles << article
user.follow_articles << article
OR
article.reader << user
article.follower << user
To access the articles
user.read_articles
user.follow_articles
To access the users
article.readers
article.followers

You should use has_many :through association. There is a Railscast about it here:
http://railscasts.com/episodes/47-two-many-to-many

Related

Model attribute contains collection of object

I have main model Page, which is container.
The page can have some to-do lists, notes, files and discussions. The idea is to have them in special order.
Page.last.container # [Todolist_obj, Note_obj, File_obj, Note_obj, Discussion_obj, File_obj, File_obj]
So I came to approach to use Mongodb
Or I also thought about using Postgres with hstore, but don't know will it help or not
Or maybe just any database and deserialize all objects when getting page, and serialize objects when saving
Or I can make superclass Item and inherit all containing objects from it using MTI and make Page has many relationship.
So I don't know which way is the best?
or perhaps there is a better way?
I have used acts_as_list for implementing sortable objects very successfully. Additionally, i would abstract the elements of a page into a separate model, here called PageElement.
I think there is no need to switch to a NoSQL database (although i have nothing against this approach). Here is a rough sketch of what i'm thinking:
class Page < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :page_elements, :order => 'position'
has_many :todo_lists, :through => :page_elements, :source => :element, :source_type => 'TodoList'
has_many :notes, :through => :page_elements, :source => :element, :source_type => 'Note'
has_many :files, :through => :page_elements, :source => :element, :source_type => 'File'
has_many :discussions, :through => :page_elements, :source => :element, :source_type => 'Discussion'
end
class PageElement < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :page
belongs_to :element, :polymorphic => true
acts_as_list :scope => :page
end
class TodoList < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :page_element, :as => :element
has_one :page, :through => :page_elements
end
class Note < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :page_element, :as => :element
has_one :page, :through => :page_elements
end
class File < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :page_element, :as => :element
has_one :page, :through => :page_elements
end
class Discussion < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :page_element, :as => :element
has_one :page, :through => :page_elements
end

Rails polymorphic table that has other kinds of associations

I'm currently modeling a Rails 3.2 app and I need a polymorphic association named "archivable" in a table named "archives". No worries with it, but my "archives" table must also belongs_to a "connections" table. I just want to know if there's any constraints from Rails to do that.
You can see the model here
Another detail, my Connection model has twice user_id as foreign key. A user_id as sender and a user_is as receiver. Possible? I think what I did below won't work...
Here are my models associations.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :connections, :foreign_key => :sender
has_many :connections, :foreign_key => :receiver
end
class Connections < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
has_many :archives
end
class Archive < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :connection
belongs_to :archivable, :polymorphic => true
end
class Wink < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :archives, :as => :archivable
end
class Game < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :archives, :as => :archivable
end
class Message < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :archives, :as => :archivable
end
Do you see anything wrong or something not doable with Rails?
Thank you guys.
I think you want to do this :
class Connections
belongs_to :sender, :class_name => 'User', :foreign_key => 'sender_id'
belongs_to :receiver, :class_name => 'User', :foreign_key => 'receiver_id'
end
class User
has_many :sended_connections, :class_name => 'Connection', :as => :sender
has_many :received_connections, :class_name => 'Connection', :as => :receiver
end
Important : Don't declare 2 times has_many :connections with the same name !

Finding the repliers to a comment from a polymorphic comments model

I have this polymorphic association where a user can have many comments, a school can have many comments, and a comment can have many comments (or in my naming case replies):
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
attr_accessible :content
has_many :replies, :as => :commentable, :class_name => "Comment" # replies to comments
belongs_to :commentable, :polymorphic => true
belongs_to :commentor, :class_name => "User", :foreign_key => "user_id"
end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments, :as => :commentable
has_many :commentors, # all users who commented on a user
:through => :comments,
:source => :commentor
end
class School < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments, :as => :commentable
has_many :commentors, # all users who commented on a school
:through => :comments,
:source => :commentor
end
In the User, I can retrieve all who commented on a user using #user.commentors. Same goes for School, i.e. #school.commentors.
For the comments model, I would like to acheive the same thing for the Comments model where I can find all the commentors (or I guess repliers) to a comment; however, I have no idea what kind of association to create since a has_many :through association will not work like how it worked for the User and School model.
Use this:
has_many :reply_commentors, :through => :replies, :source => :commentor

What is the best way to handle 4 way relation between 2 models?

I have two models: Company and User
This is the situation:
Company can follow another company
User can follow a company
User can follow another user
What is the best way to define the relationships and how will the join model look like?
Also, are there any best practises when addressing such situations?
Update
Sorry, to have not mentioned this earlier. I am aware of the various relationship types available. My question is 'which is the best fit'?
Regarding your question I would suggest you to go through couple of Railscasts videos:
http://railscasts.com/episodes/47-two-many-to-many
http://railscasts.com/episodes/154-polymorphic-association
And this is described very well on RubyonRails website
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html
I would say look these for your case:
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html#the-has_many-through-association
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html#the-has_and_belongs_to_many-association
I hope this will help you.
Thanks to polymorphic associations, we can put all relations into one table which like this:
create_table :follows do |t|
t.references :followable, :polymorphic => true
t.references :followed_by, :polymorphic => true
end
Then the models are:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :following_objects, :class_name => 'Follow', :as => :followed_by
has_many :followed_objects, :class_name => 'Follow', :as => :followable
end
class Company < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :following_objects, :class_name => 'Follow', :as => :followed_by
has_many :followed_objects, :class_name => 'Follow', :as => :followable
end
class Follow < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :followable, :polymorphic => true
belongs_to :followed_by, :polymorphic => true
end
Sorry for the ugly names.
A basic idea would be to use two self-referencing assocations:
User -> Friendship <- User
Company -> Partnership <- Company
models/user.rb
has_many :friendships
has_many :friends, :through => :friendships
has_many :inverse_friendships, :class_name => "Friendship", :foreign_key => "friend_id"
has_many :inverse_friends, :through => :inverse_friendships, :source => :user
models/friendship.rb
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :friend, :class_name => "User"
models/company.rb
has_many :partnerships
has_many :partners, :through => :partnerships
has_many :inverse_partnerships, :class_name => "Partnership", :foreign_key => "partner_id"
has_many :inverse_partners, :through => :inverse_partnerships, :source => :company
models/partnership.rb
belongs_to :company
belongs_to :partner, :class_name => "Company"
And one many-to-many assocation:
User -> CompanyUser <- Company
models/user.rb
has_and_belongs_to_many :companies
models/company.rb
has_and_belongs_to_many :users
So for this implementation you will need 5 tables (users, friendships, companies, partnerships and companies_users) if you are using a RDBMS.
You can get a nice example in this screencast:
http://railscasts.com/episodes/163-self-referential-association

ActiveRecord, has_many :through, Polymorphic Associations with STI

In ActiveRecord, has_many :through, and Polymorphic Associations, the OP's example requests ignoring the possible superclass of Alien and Person (SentientBeing). This is where my question lies.
class Widget < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :widget_groupings
has_many :people, :through => :widget_groupings, :source => :person, :source_type => 'Person'
has_many :aliens, :through => :widget_groupings, :source => :alien, :source_type => 'Alien'
end
SentientBeing < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :widget_groupings, :as => grouper
has_many :widgets, :through => :widget_groupings
end
class Person < SentientBeing
end
class Alien < SentientBeing
end
In this modified example the grouper_type value for Alien and Person are now both stored by Rails as SentientBeing (Rails seeks out the base class for this grouper_type value).
What is the proper way to modify the has_many's in Widget to filter by type in such a case? I want to be able to do Widget.find(n).people and Widget.find(n).aliens, but currently both of these methods (.people and .aliens) return empty set [] because grouper_type is always SentientBeing.
Have you tried the simplest thing - adding :conditions to the has_many :throughs?
In other words, something like this (in widget.rb):
has_many :people, :through => :widget_groupings, :conditions => { :type => 'Person' }, :source => :grouper, :source_type => 'SentientBeing'
has_many :aliens, :through => :widget_groupings, :conditions => { :type => 'Alien' }, :source => :grouper, :source_type => 'SentientBeing'
JamesDS is correct that a join is needed - but it's not written out here, since the has_many :through association is already doing it.

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