Relationships of model - ruby-on-rails

How can I get all relationships for model. IE, I've got User model:
class User < AR::Base
has_many :messages, :foreign_key => 'author'
has_many :posts
belongs_to :role
end
So how can I know which relationships User model has got? And foreign_keys if they are presented.

User.reflect_on_all_associations.each do |assoc|
puts "#{assoc.macro} #{assoc.name}"
end
Outputs:
has_many messages
has_many posts
belongs_to role
The reflect_on_all_associations method return an array of MacroReflection objects. They support other methods as well, for querying the options hash of each association and other useful stuff.

Related

has_many :through relationships explained

I'm new to Rails and have some doubts about the kind of relationship do I need to use. Here is the case.
I have two models Offer and User, a user could belong to to many offers and offers can have many user. Also the users create the offers.
I think I have to use a has_many :through ralationship. For example I've created another model "Applicant". Applicant belongs_to user and belongs_to offer. But how is the relationship from the user and offer model? For example:
User Model
has_many :offer, :through => :applicant
Offer Model
has_many :user, :through => :applicant
My doubt is because I already have this two relationship
User Model
has_many :offers, :dependent => :destroy
Offer Model
belongs_to :user
After solve this, I guest I have to save the record in the applicant model from the applicanst_controller, right?
Thanks in advance
What you have described is a many-to-many relationship using a join table. You're actually pretty close but you just need to remove the has_many :offers, :dependent => :destroy from your user model and the blongs_to :user in your offer model. It should look something like this:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :offers, :through => :applicants
end
class Applicant < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :users
belongs_to :offers
end
class Offer < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :users, :through => :applicants
end
You don't have to worry about the dependent destroy part as associations are automatically removed as the corresponding objects are removed. With a many to many association it doesn't really matter how you go about building the relationship. Either of the following will work:
#user.offers << #offer
#offers.users << #user
If you don't need to store any information specific to your applicant join table (e.g., time stamps, descriptions) you might instead want to look at a has_and_belongs_to_many relationship. Check out choosing between has_many_through and has_and_belongs_to_many for reference.
Edit
Heres the code for a HABTM relationship:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :offers
end
class Offer < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :users
end

has_many and belongs_to of the same model

I am pretty new to rails. I am trying to figure out the most efficient way to create a relationship between two models that states:
A user can "favorite" many songs
A song has an owner.
This is what I am thinking of doing. Does it make sense ?
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :songs #songs this user has favorited
end
class Song < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user #the user whom submitted this song
end
My concern about this method is that I'm unsure about the efficiency of doing query on every song in the database just to figure out which songs a particular user owns. Is there a different way I should be thinking about this ?
By the way, is there a method by which I can call the attribute something different than it's model name. So rather than User.find(1).songs[0] I could say User.find(1).favorites[0] even though the model is still a "Song".
You'll need 2 separate relationships between the User and Song models. Namely, you'll need an 'owner' relationship and a 'favorite' relationship. The 'owner' relationship can be a simple has_many/belongs_to as you have it now. The 'favorite' relationship is many-to-many and will need a join table used either as a habtm table or a first class model with a has_many through relationship as explained here.
The generallly recommended approach is to use has_many through as it gives you better control:
class User
has_many :songs # these are songs 'owned' by the user
has_many :user_favorite_songs
has_many :favorite_songs, :through => :user_favorite_songs # these are the favorites
end
class Song
belongs_to :user
has_many :user_favorite_songs
end
class UserFavoriteSong
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :favorite_song, :class_name => 'Song', :foreign_key => :song_id
end
This looks perfectly fine.
Rails associations try to be most efficient - don't prematurely optimize.
You can alias the association's name like so:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :favorites, class_name: 'Song'
end
see the docs about associations.
Regarding performance anyway, you might want to have a look at the :inverse_of association option.
I haven't tested this code, but you'll need something like this.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :favorites, :class_name => "Song" #user's favorited songs
end
class Song < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user #the user who submitted the song
has_and_belongs_to_many :user, :as => :favorite
end
And since multiple users can favorite a song, you'll need a 'join table'
CreateUsersFavorites < ActiveRecord::Migration
def up
create_table :users_favorites do |t|
t.references :user
t.references :favorite
end
create_index :users_favorites, :user_id
create_index :users_favorites, :favorite_id
end
def down
drop_table :users_favorites
end
end
Also, I highly recommend taking a look at the rails guide for active record relationships.

How do I specify a table with 2 foreign keys in rails?

If I have a legacy database where I the relationships between 2 entities are defined in a different table. How do I create that relationship in rails?
The basic relationship I want to present is:
---Admins:
First_name
Last_name
id
---Sites:
id
subject
---Admin_Sites
id
teacher_id
class_id
I know in rails I would just use belongs_to: and has_many: but if I have a (constantly updated) teach_class table, I need to somehow specify that THAT's where rails need to look for the relationship of who is related to which class. I am at a loss how I can specify this. Is it possible to somehow specify :foreign_key as "teach_class.teacher_id" in classes model?
In Teacher Model you would have
has_many :teach_classes
has_many :classes, :through => :teach_classes
see this blog for has_many :through relationship - http://ruby-on-rails-dipak-panchal.blogspot.in/2012/10/has-many-through-relationship.html
class Admin < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :admin_sites
has_many :sites, :through => :admin_sites
end
class Site < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :admin_sites
has_many :admins, :through => :admin_sites
end
class AdminSites < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :admin
belongs_to :site
end

Comment belongs_to one of several models

My scenario is that there are several different models which can have comments. Trying to figure out the relationships:
Post
has_many :comments
Update
has_many :comments
Comment
belongs_to EITHER :post OR :update (but not both)????
Whats the proper way to set up the comment relationships? I want to be able to call Post.comments and Update.comments
Smells like a polymorphic association:
With polymorphic associations, a model can belong to more than one other model, on a single association. For example, you might have a picture model that belongs to either an employee model or a product model.
So you'd want something like this:
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :commentable, :polymorphic => true
end
class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments, :as => :commentable
end
class Update < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :comments, :as => :commentable
end
You'd have to set up a few things in the database for this to work as well. See the Polymorphic Associations section of the Active Record Associations Guide for details on the columns you'll need.

Relationship like Twitter followers/followed in ActiveRecord

I'm trying to represent a relationship between users in my application where a user can have many followers and can follow other users.
I would like to have something like user.followers() and user.followed_by()
Could you please tell me in details how to represent this using ActiveRecord?
Thanks.
You need two models, a Person and a Followings
rails generate model Person name:string
rails generate model Followings person_id:integer follower_id:integer blocked:boolean
and the following code in the models
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :followers, :class_name => 'Followings', :foreign_key => 'person_id'
has_many :following, :class_name => 'Followings', :foreign_key => 'follower_id'
end
and corresponding in the Followings class you write
class Followings < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :person
belongs_to :follower, :class_name => 'Person'
end
You could make the names clearer to your liking (i especially don't like the Followings-name), but this should get you started.
The twitter follower model differs from the friendship model in that you do not need permission from the person to follow them. Here I set up a lazy loading where the relationship is not fully defined in the person object.
/app/models/person.rb
def followers
Followership.where(:leader_id=>self.id).not_blocked
end
def following
Followership.where(:follower_id=>:self.id).not_blocked
end
has_many :followers, :class_name=>'Followership'
has_many :followed_by, :class_name=>'Followership'
/app/models/followership.rb
belongs_to :leader, :class_name=>'Person'
belongs_to :follower, :class_name=>'Person'
#leader_id integer
#follower_id integer
#blocked boolean
scope :not_blocked, :conditions => ['blocked = ?', false]

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