has_many_and_belongs_to_many

rubyonrails-talk
#1

I read this:
   http://jrhicks.net/Projects/rails/has_many_and_belongs_to_many.pdf

It is from 2005, so some of it has old screenshots (and it looks like
Windows).

Do I really create that third table on my own? Rails doesn't
automagically create it?

I have students and parents. Students can have more than one parent
and a parent can have more than one student. So I have to create a
students_parents table to track the connections? How will rails know
it is that instead of a parents_students table?

Thanks,
--Colin

#2

Actually, rails would want a parents_students table, it puts the model
names in sort order.

And yes, you need to create the table, but nowadays you can use a
migration instead of hand coded sql

   CreateParentsStudents < ActiveRecord::Migration

    def self.up
        create_table :parents_students, :id => false do | t |
            t.column :parent_id, :integer
            t.column :student_id, :integer
        end
   end

   def self.down
        drop_table :parents_students
   end
end

#3

Okay, thanks. I did that. Perfect.

--Colin