slava wrote in post #1064971:
I have *Messages* and *User* models with corresponding tables. The *Messages* table has such fields like *user_from* and *user_to*.
I hope you mean your model names are "Message" and "User". Model names should always be singular form. The underlying tables will be plural form.
How can associate the models to be able to access sender and recipient users objects:
message.user_from.name message.user_to.id ...
You will need two foreign keys. You won't be able to rely solely on the Rails naming conventions. Thankfully, the Rails defaults can be easily overridden.
See:
Pay special attention to the options :class_name and :foreign_key. That is how you override the Rails defaults and tell the model how to make the associations.
Example:
User