# Which Association?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-association/159486>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [February 5, 2009, 12:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-association/159486 "2009-02-05T00:09:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![George\_Bray](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@George\_Bray](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/George_Bray)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2009, 12:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-association/159486/1 "2009-02-05T00:09:38Z")

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I have a number of models and each has a Status. I want to have a  
single  
Status table to contain all statuses for all models. I’d prefer not to  
have  
intermediary join tables for each model.

Lecturn.status\_id -\> Status.id  
Capturer.status\_id -\> Status.id  
Recording.status\_id -\> Status.id  
etc

Is this a polymorphic association, or is there a better way?

thanks!

–  
George Bray, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![George\_Bray](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@George\_Bray](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/George_Bray)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2009, 5:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-association/159486/2 "2009-02-05T17:50:56Z")

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yes, polymorphic association.