Multiple has_one to same table

Rails
1

Your input/experience appreciated. I have noticed multiple
discussions regarding husband and wife. But none really end in a
“this is a the best way to handle things.” Here is my situation. I’m
recording information on couples – husband and wife, one of each. If
the two are no longer married, the couple will evaporate. If either
person is deleted, then couple will evaporate. I originally thought
of having all individuals in one table, persons, and then creating
couple with alink to each person.

== Schema Information

Schema version: 20100620123354

Table name: couples

id :integer not null, primary key

active :boolean

husband_id :integer # reference to persons table

wife_id :integer # reference to persons table

I was then thinking:

belongs_to :husband,:class_name=>“Person”,:foreign_key=>“husband_id”
belongs_to :wife,:class_name=>“Person”,:foreign_key=>“wife_id”

and then having classes “Husband < Person” and “Wife < Person”. Is
this feasible?

I am so torn I don’t know what step to take next. I’m early in
development so I can do anything. But what I want to do is what is
best.

Do I stick with a couples table and one persons table?

Do I create separate tables for husbands and wives? If I do this, can
I create one Person class and Husband & Wife models inheriting
Person…that way the two tables are created and migrated
separately?

You input is really appreciated.
dvn

2

On 20 June 2010 20:05, dkmdnielsen [email protected] wrote:

Your input/experience appreciated. I have noticed multiple
discussions regarding husband and wife. But none really end in a
“this is a the best way to handle things.”

Of course, you can stop at level 7 or 8 if it suits you.

3

Outside of the fact that there is really excellent information in
what your link provides, did it have to be so politically charged???

I can at least feel good that I am already at level seven, and some
semantic changes puts me at eight. I would say stopping at eleven
works for me (no sex or gender on table), but having gives us a bit of
a heads up when talking with prospective couples on the phone.
Knowing Terry or Sam or Francis is a woman gives us a little more
information.

So is the couple/partnership a child of the person table? Are
partners 1 & 2 a belongs_to to Person? Do I try to do a habtm on
person’s itself using a spouse id?

I’m pretty green on setting up the syntax of all this. Not to mention
figuring out the database constraints on the table itself.

dvn

4

You provided this link elsewhere. This one, too, is excellent for
setting up the syntax.

Have a good one!