How to model has_many with polymorphism? - ruby-on-rails

Question

I've run into a situation that I am not quite sure how to model.
EDIT: The code below now represent a working solution. I am still interested in nicer looking solutions, though.
Suppose I have a User class, and a user has many services. However, these services are quite different, for example a MailService and a BackupService, so single table inheritance won't do. Instead, I am thinking of using polymorphic associations together with an abstract base class:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :services
end
class Service < ActiveRecord::Base
validates_presence_of :user_id, :implementation_id, :implementation_type
validates_uniqueness_of :user_id, :scope => :implementation_type
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :implementation, :polymorphic => true, :dependent => :destroy
delegate :common_service_method, :name, :to => :implementation
end
#Base class for service implementations
class ServiceImplementation < ActiveRecord::Base
validates_presence_of :user_id, :on => :create
#Virtual attribute, allows us to create service implementations in one step
attr_accessor :user_id
has_one :service, :as => :implementation
after_create :create_service_record
#Tell Rails this class does not use a table.
def self.abstract_class?
true
end
#Name of the service.
def name
self.class.name
end
#Returns the user this service
#implementation belongs to.
def user
unless service.nil?
service.user
else #Service not yet created
#my_user ||= User.find(user_id) rescue nil
end
end
#Sets the user this
#implementation belongs to.
def user=(usr)
#my_user = usr
user_id = usr.id
end
protected
#Sets up a service object after object creation.
def create_service_record
service = Service.new(:user_id => user_id)
service.implementation = self
service.save!
end
end
class MailService < ServiceImplementation
#validations, etc...
def common_service_method
puts "MailService implementation of common service method"
end
end
#Example usage
MailService.create(..., :user => user)
BackupService.create(...., :user => user)
user.services.each do |s|
puts "#{user.name} is using #{s.name}"
end #Daniel is using MailService, Daniel is using BackupService
Notice that I want the Service instance to be implictly created when I create a new service.
So, is this the best solution? Or even a good one? How have you solved this kind of problem?

Answer 1

I don't think your current solution will work. If ServiceImplementation is abstract, what will the associated classes point to? How does the other end of the has_one work, if ServiceImplementation doesn't have a pk persisted to the database? Maybe I'm missing something.
EDIT: Whoops, my original didn't work either. But the idea is still there. Instead of a module, go ahead and use Service with STI instead of polymorphism, and extend it with individual implementations. I think you're stuck with STI and a bunch of unused columns across different implementations, or rethinking the services relationship in general. The delegation solution you have might work as a separate ActiveRecord, but I don't see how it works as abstract if it has to have a has_one relationship.
EDIT: So instead of your original abstract solution, why not persist the delgates? You'd have to have separate tables for MailServiceDelegate and BackupServiceDelegate -- not sure how to get around that if you want to avoid all the null columns with pure STI. You can use a module with the delgate classes to capture the common relationships and validations, etc. Sorry it took me a couple of passes to catch up with your problem:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :services
end
class Service < ActiveRecord::Base
validates_presence_of :user_id
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :service_delegate, :polymorphic => true
delegate :common_service_method, :name, :to => :service_delegate
end
class MailServiceDelegate < ActiveRecord::Base
include ServiceDelegate
def name
# implement
end
def common_service_method
# implement
end
end
class BackupServiceDelegate < ActiveRecord::Base
include ServiceDelegate
def name
# implement
end
def common_service_method
# implement
end
end
module ServiceDelegate
def self.included(base)
base.has_one :service, :as => service_delegate
end
def name
raise "Not Implemented"
end
def common_service_method
raise "Not Implemented"
end
end

Answer 2

I think following will work
in user.rb
has_many :mail_service, :class_name => 'Service'
has_many :backup_service, :class_name => 'Service'
in service.rb
belongs_to :mail_user, :class_name => 'User', :foreign_key => 'user_id', :conditions=> is_mail=true
belongs_to :backup_user, :class_name => 'User', :foreign_key => 'user_id', :conditions=> is_mail=false