table associations and models best practice

rubyonrails-talk
1

I need some help understanding the proper way to save (if possible) using the new(). create() method. I need an example to try to explain.

Say, I have a table called projects with id, name, and status_id as attributes along with another table called statuses with id, name

My Project model will contain a "belongs_to :status" and Status model will contain a "has_many :projects".

Status table can contain ("active", "scheduled", "inactive") along with their respective ids.

I'm trying to figure out the proper way for, say, creating a new project model using new() or create() with an 'active' id.

I'm looking to understand the difference between these and whether I should always prefer to use one over the other...

p = Project.new(:name => "blah", :status_id => Status.find_by_name("active").id)

p = Project.new(:name => "blah", :status_id => Status.find_by_name("active"))

p = Project.new(:name => "blah", :status => Status.find_by_name("active").id)

p = Project.new(:name => "blah", :status => Status.find_by_name("active"))

Another question, along the same lines should I be doing the following?

p = Project.new(:name => "blah", :status_id => Status.new(:name=> "test"))

p.save should create the new Status right?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

2

ray wrote:

I need some help understanding the proper way to save (if possible) using the new(). create() method. I need an example to try to explain.

Say, I have a table called projects with id, name, and status_id as attributes along with another table called statuses with id, name

My Project model will contain a "belongs_to :status" and Status model will contain a "has_many :projects".

Status table can contain ("active", "scheduled", "inactive") along with their respective ids.

I'm trying to figure out the proper way for, say, creating a new project model using new() or create() with an 'active' id.

I'm looking to understand the difference between these and whether I should always prefer to use one over the other...

p = Project.new(:name => "blah", :status_id => Status.find_by_name("active").id)

p = Project.new(:name => "blah", :status_id => Status.find_by_name("active"))

p = Project.new(:name => "blah", :status => Status.find_by_name("active").id)

p = Project.new(:name => "blah", :status => Status.find_by_name("active"))

If you use the enumerations_mixin plugin you can write

p = Project.new(:name => "blah", :status => :active)

Another question, along the same lines should I be doing the following?

p = Project.new(:name => "blah", :status_id => Status.new(:name=> "test"))

p.save should create the new Status right?

To create the new status you'd have assign the new Status object to the status attribute rather than status_id.