First the data model, then the question:
running Rails 2.2.3, I have
class Forum < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :topics, :dependent => :destroy, :order => 'created_at desc' end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :topics, :dependent => :destroy has_many :comments, :dependent => :destroy has_many :replies, :dependent => :destroy end
class Topic < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :forum belongs_to :user has_many :comments, :dependent => :destroy end
class Comment < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user belongs_to :topic has_many :replies, :dependent => :destroy end
class Reply < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :user belongs_to :comment end
So Users can post Topics to Forums. They can also post Comments to the Topics in a Forum. And they can post Replies to the Comments.
I want to be able to get a list of Forums they've participated in by posting either Topics or Comments or Replies.
I could just create a Membership that would relate a User to a Forum whenever they post something, but then I'd need to maintain the Membership when/if they delete their last Post/Comment/Reply from a given Forum. That seems messy.
what I'm wonder is if I can do something like this:
class User < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :topics, :dependent => :destroy has_many :comments, :dependent => :destroy has_many :replies, :dependent => :destroy
has_many :forums, :through => :topics, :uniq => true has_many :forums, :through => :comments, :uniq => true has_many :forums, :through => :replies, :uniq => true
end
I dont think so... Only the Topic model is directly associated with the Forum.
Is there a clean way to do a HMT association on multiple, nested associations like this?