# How do I create this relationship in Rails? At least...what's the best way? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 2, 2008, 1:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-do-i-create-this-relationship-in-rails-at-least-whats-the-best-way/144790 "2008-08-02T01:40:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lefty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/85e7bf/32.png) [@Lefty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Lefty)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 1:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-do-i-create-this-relationship-in-rails-at-least-whats-the-best-way/144790/1 "2008-08-02T01:40:38Z")
I have a model, let’s call it an Assessments model. This model describes a collection of questions I’m developing to profile a user. So the first one is maybe a travel assessment. It consists of a few questions related to travel. Another assessment may be a sports assessment. This will find out what types of sports/recreational activities you like through a variety of questions. Now each assessment has\_many questions. For travel it may be, do you like warm or cold climates? Each question has\_many Answer Choices, which may be yes, no, maybe, sometimes, or a variety of other options. And then each question will also has\_one answer, per user, that has a FK to the Users table and Question Table. This should give you an idea of what an assessment is. Now, each assessment has a profile. So the travel assessment will allow the user to create a travel profile. And the sports assessment will allow a sports profile (think online profile or something with descriptions, interests, etc). My question is: How can I model these profiles? They can’t really use STI because while there are a few overlapping similarities in the profiles, I may eventually have 30 assessments and 20 different fields per profile - so over 600 fields in that one table (with STI). Polymorphism doesn’t work because I don’t have enough duplication between the profiles. So what can I use? I’ve thought about creating a different model for each profile. Like a TravelProfiles model and a SportsProfiles model. But this seems like a lot of programming work per new assessment added. Then I thought about adding a ProfileFields model that will allow you to add a new row for a field and add an assessment type FK to that table. The only problem is, how do I deal with different data types? Like if one field is a multiple choice, where should I store the multiple choices? Or even if it’s a yes/no question, how do I store that in the database and make use of the data in the view? Ugh…sorry, long question! Thanks for any insight! ---
**Author:** ![Lefty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/85e7bf/32.png) [@Lefty](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Lefty)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 3:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-do-i-create-this-relationship-in-rails-at-least-whats-the-best-way/144790/2 "2008-08-02T03:34:12Z")
Lefty wrote: > My question is: How can I model these profiles? They can’t really > use STI because while there are a few overlapping similarities in the > profiles, I may eventually have 30 assessments and 20 different fields > per profile - so over 600 fields in that one table (with STI). > Ugh…sorry, long question! Thanks for any insight! I guess I don’t see how the profiles are different from the assessments. Just more questions per type? It may be a drag creating all of those profiles and their questions, but I don’t see how the size of that table is any concern. So it has 600 rows in it, no big deal. Imagine a “user” table on a busy site that has been around for awhile; that table would have many thousands of rows. I think you haven’t made your concern clear yet. thanks, jp