One model with lots of tables in Rails

rubyonrails-talk
1

On a forum I discovered this. That was intended for to use on just one model:

module SharedStuff      self.abstract_class = true      self.table_name = 'footable'      self.table_name = 'bartable' end

class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base    include SharedStuff end

class Bar < ActiveRecord::Base    include SharedStuff end

Surely, this overrides the Rails conventions, but that's what i intend to achieve. Can I do this in one model? Is this true? Can you verify this example take from here: http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-deployment/browse_thread/thread/4244ed959648dc8a ? Hope you can help me.

Later

The Neurochild

2

May I correct myself: Can I put all the tables of the database in one model? Making one-on-one when you have 49 tables is a royal PITA! Practical, but a PITA!

Hope I didn't confuse you.

Later...

The Neurochild

3

Your interpretation:

module SharedStuff      self.abstract_class = true      self.table_name = 'footable'      self.table_name = 'bartable' end

class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base    include SharedStuff end

class Bar < ActiveRecord::Base    include SharedStuff end

isn't the same as what is mentioned in that posting... including the SharedStuff module just makes those methods available to your model, each model should still spec its own table_name. As you are set, everything reads from 'bartable' if I understand the internals correctly.

I prefer the abstract class method, and have a class GenericModel, which defines all the default behaviors for all the other models. Centralized cache management, polymorphic join management, all that ugly stuff you don't want to type more than once.

Every other model inherits from GenericModel, overriding default behaviors if necessary. But GenericModel has no data fields, no table names, just methods.

I also use a GenericController, and for almost all of my other controllers, they contain nothing more than a before_filter, sometimes a different layout, and any actions unique to their model. index, new, edit, save, update... they all reside in GenericController. Actions not done by all controllers, like deep copy, or PDF generation are in each controller that supports it.