# STI, xml/xslt, or ? for many custom forms/templates

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sti-xml-xslt-or-for-many-custom-forms-templates/195640>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [September 27, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sti-xml-xslt-or-for-many-custom-forms-templates/195640 "2010-09-27T15:03:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/AppleII717)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sti-xml-xslt-or-for-many-custom-forms-templates/195640/1 "2010-09-27T15:03:52Z")

</div>

I’m considering porting an application to RoR. The application is  
basically a “Order Entry” type system for the Interior Designer  
vertical market. The existing application has a table with over 400  
column! (not my design!). The majority of these columns are  
measurements and descriptions for a certain types of product  
categories (e.g., “Draperies”,“Sheer Draperies”,  
“Upholstery”,“Pillows”,“Lampshades”, etc)

Each one of these categories (25+) has a custom form that display the  
measurement attributes for that category. To make things worse,  
there’s a lot of javascript that enables/disables/shows/hides areas/  
fields. There is some sharing of attributes (width, height, length,  
size, for example). I can cut down the javascript by creating more  
categories - for instance there are 3 types of “Sheer Draperies”.

I alway though that these “Category Details” didn’t need to be stored  
individually in a record, but serialized in a “Details” fields. Now  
the basic question is what would be the best approach?

I’ve never done xml/xslt type forms and don’t know how difficult that  
would be.

I’ve experimented with what could be considered “Tableless STI” and it  
works, but with a few gotcha’s. For instance:

class Detail \< ActiveRecord::Base  
def self.columns  
@columns ||= [];  
end  
… rest of tableless stuff  
#common attributes  
column :type, :string  
column :category, :string  
column :workroom\_material\_reference, :text  
column :description, :string  
…  
end

class Carpet \< Detail  
column :style, :string  
column :quanity, :integer  
column :yards, :float  
end

The tableless approach would not allow me to create a new Carpet  
without first doing Detail.new. There were other problems that I  
hacked around, like defining def self.new\_category(category) that  
creates new ActiveRecord objects for both the basic attributes and the  
category attributes. Maybe if I used a real table, some of those  
problems would go away.

That approach is livable, but was wondering if I am totally missing a  
better approach?

Anyway, I know I am still going to have a couple hundred date elements  
to deal with and a bunch of partials.

Anyone want to point me in a different direction?

Steve A.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/AppleII717)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sti-xml-xslt-or-for-many-custom-forms-templates/195640/2 "2010-09-27T16:45:47Z")

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if i were you i would back up my db and create migration to move  
everything  
to different tables. In fact you could do a rake task for that.

desc “Fixing that crapping design”  
task :fix\_the\_fail =\> :environment do  
crappy\_table = “crappy\_table\_name”  
new\_tables = [“table1”,“table2”,“table3”…etc]  
category\_a =  
[“Draperies\_name”,“date”,“workroom\_material\_reference”…etc]  
category\_b =  
[“Upholstery\_name”,“date”,“workroom\_material\_reference”…etc]  
category\_c =  
[“Lampshades\_name”,“date”,“workroom\_material\_reference”…etc]  
category\_d = [“name”,“date”,“workroom\_material\_reference”…etc]  
categories = [category\_a,category\_b,category\_c,category\_d]  
ActiveRecord::Base.establish\_connection  
i=0  
ActiveRecord::Base.connection.tables.each do |table\_name|  
if new\_table.include? table\_name  
data = ActiveRecord::Base.connection.insert(insert into  
table\_name  
categories[0] values (select categories[0] % crappy\_table)  
i++  
end  
end  
end  
end

something like that and just forget about everything before that

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/AppleII717)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sti-xml-xslt-or-for-many-custom-forms-templates/195640/3 "2010-09-27T16:48:37Z")

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radhames brito wrote:

> if i were you i would back up my db and create migration to move  
> everything  
> to different tables. In fact you could do a rake task for that.

But you shouldn’t. No schema change should ever be done without a  
migration.

## Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser  
[http://www.marnen.org](http://www.marnen.org)  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/AppleII717)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sti-xml-xslt-or-for-many-custom-forms-templates/195640/4 "2010-09-27T16:56:54Z")

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he would first create the appropriate tables with a migrations, if you  
look  
at the rake that i gave is does not create any tables, i suggest he adds  
them first then move everything with a migration or a task

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/AppleII717)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sti-xml-xslt-or-for-many-custom-forms-templates/195640/5 "2010-09-27T21:50:47Z")

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well ok , he can use a migration then is not like the logic is very  
different , he just has to move the connection related code.

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 3:29 PM, Marnen Laibow-Koser

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**Author:** ![AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@AppleII717](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/AppleII717)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sti-xml-xslt-or-for-many-custom-forms-templates/195640/6 "2010-09-27T21:29:09Z")

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PLEASE QUOTE WHEN REPLYING! How many times must I say this?

radhames brito wrote:

> he would first create the appropriate tables with a migrations, if you  
> look  
> at the rake that i gave is does not create any tables, i suggest he adds  
> them first then move everything with a migration or a task

Unnecessary. The migration should contain everything that is necessary  
to both create the schema and fit the data into the new schema. The  
whole point of migrations is that each migration contains everything  
that is necessary to bring the database from one consistent state to  
another.

## Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser  
[http://www.marnen.org](http://www.marnen.org)  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid