Product - Accessories: Active Record model?

Rails
1

Hi,

I’ve got the following SQL tables:

create table products (
lock_version int default 0,
id serial,
title varchar(32) not null,
short_description text not null,
long_description text not null,
product_type_id int null,
vat_id int not null,
primary key (id),
foreign key (product_type_id) references product_types (id),
foreign key (vat_id) references vats (id)
);

create table accessories (
lock_version int default 0,
id serial,
product_id int not null,
accessory_product_id int not null,
primary key (id),
foreign key (product_id) references products (id),
foreign key (accessory_product_id) references products (id)
);

I’d like to design an Active Record model, so I can avoid having to use
the “Accessory” class.

For example, it would be nice being able to do things like:

ProductABC.accessories -> List of products used as
accessories
ProductABC.accessory_of -> List of products for which
ProductABC is an accessory
ProductABC.accessories << ProductXYZ -> Adds ProductXY to the list of
accessories of ProductABC

I have tried doing a few things with/without “has_and_belongs_to_many”,
but without full success…

Thanks for your help!

Philippe

2

If it is a M:M relationship you are looking for, you will also need a
join table ‘accessories_products’ that ONLY has accessory_id,
product_id, and the two foriegn key constraints. Then in the models set
products and accessories to ‘has_and_belongs_to_many.’ See p.239 in
‘Agile Development with Rails’ for more info. Good luck!