How do I model these relationships? - ruby-on-rails

I have a contact model, this includes name, address, phone number, etc.
I have a user model which should have_one contact.
I have a Customer model which has_many contacts.
I have a Producer model which has many contacts.
A contact can be only a user, a user and a customer, a user and a producer, or any combination of these three. I also need to be sure that the same contact record is linked when a contact is linked to multiple models for data integrity.
how should I create the associations?

This looks like a good application for a polymorphic association:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :contact, :as => :contactable
end
class Customer < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :contacts, :as => :contactable
end
class Producer < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :contacts, :as => :contactable
end
class Contact < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :contactable, :polymorphic => true
end
EDIT
It seems I didn't read the specs all the way through :) To associate the same contact with multiple Users, Customers, etc, you could use a has_many :through:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :user_contact, :dependent => :destroy
has_one :contact, :through => :user_contact
end
class Customer < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :customer_contacts, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :contacts, :through => :customer_contacts
end
class Producer < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :producer_contacts, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :contacts, :through => :producer_contacts
end
class UserContact
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :contact
end
class CustomerContact
belongs_to :customer
belongs_to :contact
end
class ProducerContact
belongs_to :producer
belongs_to :contact
end
class Contact < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :user_contacts, :dependent => :destroy # might use 'has_one' here depending on your requirements
has_many :users, :through => :user_contacts
has_many :customer_contacts, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :customers, :through => :customer_contacts
has_many :producer_contacts, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :producers, :through => :producer_contacts
end
That gives you one join table for each of the three associations. Each Contact can belong to none, one, or many of the three other models by adding rows to the join tables.

Related

Is it possible to have an association with the same model, but some records have another association to go through?

Kind of a difficult concept to put into a title, but here is the use case:
I have users, the users can either belong to a partner or a customer. A partner can have many customers, but all users have a partner either directly or indirectly. Is there any way to create an association that would allow for partner access on any user regardless of whether or not they are directly related to it?
This is my current setup:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :partner, through: :user_join, :source => :userable, :source_type => "Licensee"
has_one :customer, through: :user_join, :source => :userable, :source_type => "Customer"
end
class Partner < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :customers
has_many :user_joins, as: :userable
has_many :users, through: :user_joins
end
class Customer < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :partner
has_many :user_joins, as: :userable
has_many :users, through: :user_joins
end

In Rails, how would you merge these two different has_manys into one?

Let's say we have a User.
A user has_many documents through account like so…
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :account
has_many :documents, :through => :account, :order => "created_at DESC"
end
class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :owner, :class_name => "User", :dependent => :destroy
has_many :documents, :dependent => :destroy
end
class Document < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :account
end
Nice and simple, this is where it gets tricky…
A user can also collaborate on documents, this via the collaborators join table…
class Collaborator < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :documnet
end
class Document < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :collaborators, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :users, :through => :collaborators
accepts_nested_attributes_for :collaborators, :allow_destroy => true
end
The final user bit of this is what i'm not sure about. I want to add another has many documents, and when you call user.documents it blends both documents via their account and the ones they're collaborating on…
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :account
has_many :documents, :through => :account, :order => "created_at DESC"
#documents need to do both has manys…
has_many :collaborators, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :documents, :through => :collaborators
end
Thanks, it's a bit long but I can think of a neat solution. Any help would be much appreciated.
You can create a method that will request on the tables documents, accounts and collaborators to find the documents related to the user:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
#...
def documents
Document.includes(:account, :collaborators).where('collaborators.user_id = ? OR documents.account_id = ?', self.id, self.account.id)
end
end
I've not tested this request, but I hope you get the idea. Please correct it if it's erroneous.
For the 2 has_many documents, :through..., you can remove them if you don't need them anymore; Otherwise, you have to give them different names (and different from the method above).

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 :)

Rails 3 Find all records from has_many :through without collision from previous has_many

I have the following models:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :books, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :favorites
has_many :books, :through => :favorites
end
class Favorite < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :book
belongs_to :user
validates :user_id, :book_id, :presence => true
end
class Book < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :favorite
end
The idea is that a user can own a book and add a book from another user as favorite. In rails console, i tried User.find(1).favorites.books but got a NoMethodError: undefined method books'. Anduser.books` only returns the books owned by that user
Is there any way to retrieve all books that belong to a user's favorite in this case?
You are very close, but you shouldn't have two associations name books. Try something like this:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :books, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :favorites
has_many :favorite_books, :through => :favorites, :source => :book
end
Then your query would simply be User.find(1).favorites_books

Checking a related relationship once the instance is created

I have a schema where:
Students
has_and_belongs_to_many :courses
has_many :grades, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :assignments, :through => :grades
Courses
has_many :assignments, :dependent => :destroy
has_and_belongs_to_many :students
Assignments
belongs_to :course
has_many :grades, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :students, :through => :grades
Grades
belongs_to :student
belongs_to :assignment
I would like to add functionality whereby if a grade is added and the student does not belong to the course that the grade's assignment belongs to, then this relationship is made. Any suggestions as to the best way to do this? The grades_courses table does not have it's own model, will this need to be made?
A friend has suggested using after_create, but I don't know how to pass the parameters to this.
How about an observer on grades? Something like this
class GradeObserver < ActiveRecord::Observer
def after_create(grade)
unless grade.assignment.course.students.include?(grade.student)
grade.assignment.course.students << grade.student
end
end
end

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