Direct connection to db

paulbutcher · August 23, 2006, 9:28am

How do you make a direct connection to a db, not through the model?

Can I make use of execute “SELECT…”? Can that be put into a variable?

Not sure I’m thinking right here, but what if I want to fetch data
connected to a user from many tables, say 10, should I use relations or
is it smarter to fetch from each one separately?

paulbutcher · August 23, 2006, 10:46am

Look at the :include option in find. Rails can do your joins for you
automatically.

On Aug 23, 2006, at 12:28 AM, Pål Bergström wrote:

paulbutcher · August 23, 2006, 2:34pm

Tom M. wrote:

Look at the :include option in find. Rails can do your joins for you
automatically.

On Aug 23, 2006, at 12:28 AM, Pï¿½l Bergstrï¿½m wrote:

Is that as fast as doing a Model.find_by_sql(“SELECT …”)?

paulbutcher · August 23, 2006, 10:25am

PÃ¥l BergstrÃ¶m wrote:

How do you make a direct connection to a db, not through the model?

Can I make use of execute “SELECT…”? Can that be put into a variable?

Not sure I’m thinking right here, but what if I want to fetch data
connected to a user from many tables, say 10, should I use relations or
is it smarter to fetch from each one separately?

Hi PÃ¥l,

Yes it is possible to connect directly to the db. You could create your
own custom model, like my_db.rb (accessed via MyDb.find etc) or you
could use one of your existing models and just use
Model.find_by_sql(“SELECT …”) or Model.find_by_sql([“SELECT…”,
param1, param2, paramN…]).
Using the last way, it’s possible to join those 10 tables of yours in 1
select statement.

Hope that helps

paulbutcher · August 23, 2006, 7:18pm

On Aug 23, 2006, at 5:34 AM, PÃ¥l BergstrÃ¶m wrote:

Tom M. wrote:

Look at the :include option in find. Rails can do your joins for you
automatically.

On Aug 23, 2006, at 12:28 AM, Pï¿½l Bergstrï¿½m wrote:

Is that as fast as doing a Model.find_by_sql(“SELECT …”)?

It’s actually faster to write the code using the :include option,
IMHO.

–
– Tom M.