Help: self referential & search

Rails
1

hi, i have a category and a category_type model, where category is
selfreferential with parent_id. now, im not 100% sure whats the best
way for later purposes in terms of search etc., but my initial
intention was the store the category_types_id only in the root (where
parent_id == 0), but like i said, how would i search through all
children with a specific type of category_type? i mean i could read
them into an array, but thats just wrong.
should i store the category_type_id in each category?

i hope that was not to unclear… :wink:

thx tom

2

Tom T. wrote:

hi, i have a category and a category_type model, where category is
selfreferential with parent_id. now, im not 100% sure whats the best
way for later purposes in terms of search etc., but my initial
intention was the store the category_types_id only in the root (where
parent_id == 0), but like i said, how would i search through all
children with a specific type of category_type? i mean i could read
them into an array, but thats just wrong.
should i store the category_type_id in each category?

i hope that was not to unclear… :wink:

thx tom

You could store it in another table, using has_and_belongs_to_many or
has_many :through …

3

thx, i went ahead and just marked the root - will see when i hot the
forst roadblock;-)

tom

4

Tom T. wrote:

hi, i have a category and a category_type model, where category is
selfreferential with parent_id. now, im not 100% sure whats the best
way for later purposes in terms of search etc.,

awesome_nested_set, of course. :slight_smile:

but my initial
intention was the store the category_types_id only in the root (where
parent_id == 0), but like i said,

No, you didn’t say.

how would i search through all
children with a specific type of category_type? i mean i could read
them into an array, but thats just wrong.
should i store the category_type_id in each category?

i hope that was not to unclear… :wink:

It was. What exactly are you trying to do?

thx tom

Best,
–Â
Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]

5

Hi Marnen, the idea was having a selreferential table via parent_id or
lft/rgt to haev children etc… now my point of doubts was whether to
make "each"top-level record (aka a category) root r to move it into a
different table and mark there the type of that category…eg

categories:
babysitting
yard
electrics

category_types:
service
contractor
job

hope that makes it clearer.
tom

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 12:33 PM, Marnen Laibow-Koser