Getting started with database/model relationships

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hey everyone... I'm just getting my feet wet with relational databases using RoR models. The software I'm putting together relies on car parts. Originally I had the database set up as follows

create_table :parts do |t|   t.column :year, :string   t.column :make, :string   t.column :model, :string   .   .   . end

However, I now realize it's much better to do it using relationships instead. Unfortunately, I'm not too familiar with this method and have been reading up on it for a few hours. I just want to post what I think I'm supposed to be doing here and hopefully get a little feedback as to whether I'm approaching this correctly before I start programming it into my application...

class Year < ActiveRecord::Base   has_many :makes end

class Make < ActiveRecord::Base   belongs_to :year   has_many :models, :through => something_else end

class Model < ActiveRecord::Base   belongs_to :make   has_many :parts, :through => something end

class Part < ActiveRecord::Base   belongs_to :model end

However, I guess what is confusing me is that if I try to set it up this way, if I enter a part for a 1999 Jeep Cherokee, how would I link the part (say with part_id = 1337) to 1999, Jeep, and Cherokee? Would I need to refine my setup here and link the part directly to the year, make, and model by adding belongs_to and has_many or would I simply add a column for make_id, model_id, year_id to my "create_table :parts" method? ie:

create_table :parts do |t|   t.column :year_id   t.column :make_id   t.model :model_id end

The other thing confusing me is the ":through => something" stuff. In one example I see can see creating a friendship table that links two users, but I'm not sure how I would apply it in this case or if it is even smart to do it this way...

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

2

Hey Bernhard,

take a look first into this. There is a really good explanation, hope you come along with this.

Rafael

3

I think I'm making some progress here, but what I'm wondering about now is whether or not my full-text search using acts_as_ferret will still work. Right now, in the old database setup I have, the text search will find everything in the parts table. However, lets say I link part1 with model1 through a model_id (or part_id), will searching parts for "model1" yield a result?

4

Okay... Here is what I have... Let me know if I should make any refinements...

class Year < ActiveRecord::Base   has_many :makes   has_many :models, :through => :make   has_many :parts, :through => :model end

class Make < ActiveRecord::Base   belongs_to :year   has_many :models   has_many :parts, :through => :model end

class Model < ActiveRecord::Base   belongs_to :make   belongs_to :year   has_many :parts end

class Part < ActiveRecord::Base   belongs_to :model   belongs_to :make   belongs_to :year end