I have a question about how best to model a pair of properties/attributes in Rails3. The generic "models" are:
class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base end class Bar < ActiveRecord::Base end
I want Foo to have two associations with Bar, along the lines of 'has_one' for each association, where I can work with each, as in bar1 and bar2. 'has_many' would work, but it would be extra work to have to fish the correct one out of the array, and isn't as elegant a way to model the relationships.
Thanks
Randy
I suppose that it could be done with a has_one relationship repeated as such class Foo < AR::B belongs_to :bar1, class_name => "Bar", :foreign_key => "bar1_id" belongs_to :bar2, class_name => "Bar", :foreign_key => "bar2_id" end
Mind you this is not a very elegant way of doing it, but it is adhering to KiSS principles.
On the Bar end of things, how should the relationship play out? Should it only be able to be associated to one Foo?
Also are do bar 1 and bar 2 behave differently or have any characteristic that distinguish them. In other words, are all bar1's always going to be bar1's? if so you can do a normal has many relationship with a limit of 2 children and then scopes on the bar model to make up the difference.
Jesse
Thanks.
On the Bar end, it would only be associated with the one Foo, yes.
bar1 and bar2 would have different values for their respective properties, but that is about all. Well, I guess if a Foo got removed, then so should both of its Bars, but I think I've seen how to do that part.
Randy
Looking at a Bar can you tell whether it is a bar1 or a bar2 just from the records contents?
Colin
It is possible to tell bar1 from bar2 from the contents, in the few use cases I'm thinking of right now, yes.
Randy
I have a question about how best to model a pair of properties/attributes in Rails3. The generic "models" are:
class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base end class Bar < ActiveRecord::Base end
I want Foo to have two associations with Bar, along the lines of 'has_one' for each association, where I can work with each, as in bar1 and bar2. 'has_many' would work, but it would be extra work to have to fish the correct one out of the array, and isn't as elegant a way to model the relationships.
Thanks
Randy
I suppose that it could be done with a has_one relationship repeated as such class Foo < AR::B belongs_to :bar1, class_name => "Bar", :foreign_key => "bar1_id" belongs_to :bar2, class_name => "Bar", :foreign_key => "bar2_id" end
Mind you this is not a very elegant way of doing it, but it is adhering to KiSS principles.
On the Bar end of things, how should the relationship play out? Should it only be able to be associated to one Foo?
Also are do bar 1 and bar 2 behave differently or have any characteristic that distinguish them. In other words, are all bar1's always going to be bar1's? if so you can do a normal has many relationship with a limit of 2 children and then scopes on the bar model to make up the difference.
Jesse
Thanks.
On the Bar end, it would only be associated with the one Foo, yes.
You could go the STI route and give each bar its own sub class
class Bar < AR::B end class BarOne < Bar belongs_to :foo end class BarTwo < Bar belongs_to :foo end
and add the attribute type to Bar
then your Foo class could be class Foo < AR::B has_one :bar_one, :dependant => :destroy has_one :bar_two, :dependant => :destroy end with attributes of
the :dependant => :destroy will allow the two bars to be destroyed when the foo is destroyed.
While a little more work than my original suggestion this will be far more elegant as you can easily deploy more bars if needed. Also it is technically more correct as it would seem that 2 bars really belongs to one foo as deleting the foo should delete the bars, whereas the other way would make the Bars the parents of the Foo.