How can I have two controllers use the same 'category' model if they aren't related?

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi all,

I have two controllers - "foods" and "receipes" which map to models. Each one will have multiple categories, but the categories are completely different for each one - they don't share the same category. So they aren't related at all.

If I wanted to do this using resources, what is the best way to set this up? If I setup a categories controller and category model, I would be able to have /categories, /categories/1/foods but how would it know to list only the categories for food or receipes? Because I'd like to have an interface using resources to do basic CRUD operations on categories.

The only way I came up with would be to have a different category for both foods and receipes - /cat_foods/1/foods, /cat_receipes/1/recipes, but that looks really ugly and I'm sure there's an easier way I'm not getting.

Thanks for any help! Rob

2

Hi. I think the best solution is create column with categories table, named like "category_type" type boolean (for example). And let if category is foods category, the value in this column should set 1 (true), else 0 (false). Then in model Food, write: belongs_to :category, :conditions => "category_type = 1" in Receipes model: belongs_to :category, :condifions => "category_type = 0" in Category model: has_many :foods has_many :receipes And you obtain all advantages of relationsheeps one-to-many in both models.

Best Regards, Sergey