Hi all.. Just trying out Rails for the first time.. I've got a project
I'd like to port over from another environment and am just not sure
how to achieve the same sort of OO goodness I'm used to.. In my other
environment, I've declared a few classes similar to the following
(these are only a few of the overall classes):
class Address :
street : string
city : string
state : string
zip : string
email : string
phone : string
class Name :
lastname : string
husband : string
wife : string
children : array of strings
class User
acctLocked : boolean
address : Address (object)
isProfileSetup : boolean
lastLogin : datetime
name : Name (object)
userType : enum(#regular, #admin)
In this case, my old environment allowed me to create validation logic
associated
with each class so I didn't have to reproduce (for instance) address
validation logic for the various classes (not present here) that had
address records -- all was encapsulated within a single class to
reduce/eliminate redundant code.
So -- is this sort of compound objecting possible in Rails or should I
just eliminate the first two classes and add their respective fields
directly into Users?
Also, if I want to set a max field size for some of the strings (for
validation purposes or otherwise), what's the best way to do that to
ensure my generated SQL limits string length to 2 characters for state
(for instance)?
Please keep in mind that I've only been playing with Rails for about 2
hours, so I'm still learning..
Thanks!
Hi all.. Just trying out Rails for the first time.. I've got a project
I'd like to port over from another environment and am just not sure
how to achieve the same sort of OO goodness I'm used to.. In my other
environment, I've declared a few classes similar to the following
(these are only a few of the overall classes):
class Address :
street : string
city : string
state : string
zip : string
email : string
phone : string
class Name :
lastname : string
husband : string
wife : string
children : array of strings
class User
acctLocked : boolean
address : Address (object)
isProfileSetup : boolean
lastLogin : datetime
name : Name (object)
userType : enum(#regular, #admin)
In this case, my old environment allowed me to create validation logic
associated
with each class so I didn't have to reproduce (for instance) address
validation logic for the various classes (not present here) that had
address records -- all was encapsulated within a single class to
reduce/eliminate redundant code.
So -- is this sort of compound objecting possible in Rails or should I
just eliminate the first two classes and add their respective fields
directly into Users?
Sounds like you want either validates_with, which enables you to
package up a set of validations into something reusable or
validates_associated, which would tell your user that when it
validates itself it should also validate the associated address
object.
Also, if I want to set a max field size for some of the strings (for
validation purposes or otherwise), what's the best way to do that to
ensure my generated SQL limits string length to 2 characters for state
(for instance)?
validates_length_of ?
Fred
[ snipped ]
So -- is this sort of compound objecting possible in Rails or should I
just eliminate the first two classes and add their respective fields
directly into Users?
Sounds like you want either validates_with, which enables you to
package up a set of validations into something reusable or
validates_associated, which would tell your user that when it
validates itself it should also validate the associated address
object.
Ok.. I'll check into that.. However, I'm still wondering if I can
have nested objects like I mentioned above -- e.g. a User object
containing an Address object and when it's time to write to the
database, both a User object is written but the associated Address
object is also written with some sort of foreign key between the two?
Just want to make sure before I proceed down a dead end path with
Rails. Does anyone architect your data that way or just have
duplicated data (e.g. an address for a user vs an address record for
a vendor vs ??)
Thanks!
> Sounds like you want either validates_with, which enables you to
> package up a set of validations into something reusable or
> validates_associated, which would tell your user that when it
> validates itself it should also validate the associated address
> object.
Ok.. I'll check into that.. However, I'm still wondering if I can
have nested objects like I mentioned above -- e.g. a User object
containing an Address object and when it's time to write to the
database, both a User object is written but the associated Address
object is also written with some sort of foreign key between the two?
Well contain isn't how I would describe it, but objects that have
associations with other objects happens all the time.
Checkout the active record associations guide (
Active Record Associations — Ruby on Rails Guides )
Fred
Thanks! I'll check it out!