Newbie question about has_and_belongs_to_many and destroy

Rails
1

Hi all.

I think this must be a newbie moment, I really hope someone can help
me out! :slight_smile:

I have a has_and_belongs_to_many relationship set up, all of which is
working except for destroy! When I try to delete a company record with
“Company.delete(1)” I get an error (below) from rails.

I have a “Company” table, and a “Category” table, and a join table
between the 2 called categories_companies.

My company model looks like this :-

class Company < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :Category
end

and my Category model :-

class Category < ActiveRecord::Base
has_and_belongs_to_many :Company
acts_as_tree :order => “name”
end

And finally, the error from script/console :-

Company.destroy(1)
NoMethodError: undefined method clear' for Category:Class from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.5/lib/ active_record/base.rb:1238:inmethod_missing’
from (eval):3:in destroy_without_callbacks' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.5/lib/ active_record/callbacks.rb:321:indestroy_without_transactions’
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.5/lib/
active_record/transactions.rb:125:in destroy' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.5/lib/ active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/database_statements.rb: 59:intransaction’
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.5/lib/
active_record/transactions.rb:95:in transaction' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.5/lib/ active_record/transactions.rb:121:intransaction’
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.5/lib/
active_record/transactions.rb:125:in destroy' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.15.5/lib/ active_record/base.rb:488:indestroy’
from (irb):1

Thanks all!

2

Anyone?

On Jan 14, 9:04 pm, Matt R. [email protected]

3

Matt R. wrote:

Anyone?

On Jan 14, 9:04 pm, Matt R. [email protected]

Does it work if you do

Company.find(1).destroy

I’ve not tested this, but i’m thinking that Company.delete(1) might be a
class method, which might not make the callbacks work (it does seem to
be saying something about callbacks in the errors). Whereas the above
would be an instance method.

Bit of a guess but worth a try…?

4

On 15 Jan 2008, at 08:54, Matt R. wrote:

Anyone?

Not sure that it matters but as a general rule you should write
habtm :categories not habtm :Category (and similarly hatbm :companies)

Fred