Relating Tables

Rails
1

I have 2 mysql tables, Product and Color:

Color
ID ColorName
1 Red
2 Green
3 Yellow
4 Blue

Products
ID Color1 Color2 Color3 ProductName
1 ? ? ? Orco
2 ? ? ? Skeletor
3 ? ? ? He-Man

I need to display the ColorName to web visitors when they view
Products.

I can do a number of things:

  1. put Color.ID into Product.Color1, Product.Color2 and Product.Color3.
    These would be Foreign Keys and from what I read, RoR likes that.

  2. Create a new table called ProductColors which would have an ID,
    ColorID, and ProductID columns as used in many-to-many relations.

  3. Use ColorName varchar in the Products table for Color1, Color2, and
    Color3.

My actual database has a number of tables similar to Color, where all I
really need to do is link a varchar field to the Products table.

  • Which solution would be more efficient? Using ID’s seems like too
    big a hit when viewing a product.
  • Can RoR support using a string/varchar as a foriegn key? Ie. Take
    out the Color ID and make the ColorName a Primary Key and link it to
    the Products table?

Please help

Jared

Let’s say a table called Color has an int column ‘ID’ and a varchar
column ‘ColorName’ and a table called Products lists Products. Each
product has 4 colors. All I need to do is display the 4 colors to
visitors to the website. Why not just put the strings ‘Red’ ‘Green’
etc… into the Product as opposed to using the Color ID’s or even a
whole new table

2
  1. put Color.ID into Product.Color1, Product.Color2 and Product.Color3.
    These would be Foreign Keys and from what I read, RoR likes that.
    This is good if you ever want to change (eg) Red to Redish. You would
    update Color table, record 1 ONLY… Otherwise look at my Option 3)
    note.
    Also, this option will let you specify a collection to use in (eg) a
    Select list, which changes dynamically.
  1. Create a new table called ProductColors which would have an ID,
    ColorID, and ProductID columns as used in many-to-many relations.
    This is a good idea, but adds complexity. The benefit here is that you
    get to add more colors to a Product dynamically. But if you will
    always have only 3 Colors, might as well do Option 1)
  1. Use ColorName varchar in the Products table for Color1, Color2, and
    Color3.
    If you choose Option 3) over Option 1), you’d have to change all
    records in your Products Table when updating a Color name (Red to
    Redish). If you miss one, you create a whole new color which you might
    overlook later (ie changing Red to Redish (but missing a few), then
    assuming you only have Redish, you skip all the ones you didn’t update,
    that still say Red)
    Also, this will force you to hard code any Collections for Select lists
    in the Color model.

Hope that helps,
Bart

3

But if I made the ColorName the Primary Key of the color table which
links to the varchar string Color1 in the Products table, would this
not avoid having things hardcoded?

Thanks for the response.

Jared

4
  1. Create a new table called ProductColors which would have an ID,
    ColorID, and ProductID columns as used in many-to-many relations.

I’d go this way, with some modifications. Table would be
colors_products (alphabetical order),
no id column (because it is a join table). has_and_belongs_to_many[1]
would take care about the rest.

[1]
http://api.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActiveRecord/Associations/ClassMethods.html#M000533

Simple and flexible, IMHO.

Regards,
Rimantas

http://rimantas.com/