I’m currently in my first app desgined using REST and after reading a
few tutorials the basics are pretty clear, but I have a design problem
that I bet is common, but I’m not sure of the best approach…
Here are my classes/resources:
class Player < ActiveRecord::Base
…
has_many :trackers
…
end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
…
has_many :trackers
…
end
class Tracker < ActiveRecord::Base
…
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :player
…
end
I had no problem doing the basic generation of scaffolding and
building out functionality for Player and User, but now that I’m
building out the Trackers that allow a User to track a Player, I’m
confused.
I thought at first that maybe I’d set it up as a nested resource, but
that’s not making sense to me because a Tracker belongs to both a User
and a Player.
Also, from a user story design perspective, the basic thing here is
that a user should be able to track a listed or displayed Player. So,
I think one of the views will display lists of Players with each
having a “Track” button or link next to them. I’d guess this will make
use of a “new_tracker_path”, but that would need to pass params for
both the current User and the selected Player… right? (I tried it
with just passing the Player ref and thought I could just deal with my
@current_user variable in the controller, but something wasnt right)
So, can anyone help with advice on best practices for this kind of
design where a resource is joining two other resources?
It sounds to me like Users have Players is your nesting. Also, you
seem to have a “has_many :through” join setup but have implemented a
basic “has_many”. Consider this change…
class Player < ActiveRecord::Base
…
has_many :trackers
has_many :users, :through => :trackers
…
end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
…
has_many :trackers
has_many :players, :through => :trackers
…
end
class Tracker < ActiveRecord::Base
…
belongs_to :user
belongs_to :player
…
end
Thanks, Andy. It occurred to me this morning that it would useful to
add the has_many/through to it.
I’m still not clear though on the nested aspect of the design.
I ~thought~ I needed to nest the Trackers under one or the other of
Users or Players… this follows from my reading that resources that
should be nested are those that cant really exist outside of another
resource. In my case a Tracker doesnt make sense without the
association with a Player first and without a User second… Players
can exist without a User.
Am I getting it right?
Also, I seem to read that I can nest under both Users and Players.
Things can get more complex, but it can be done.
Is this true? If so, again, I’m curious what people say re: doing
so… and back to my original post, would it better (aka simpler) to
nest Trackers under Players and rely on a current_user variable being
set to make that association in the TrackersController when a new
Tracker is being created for a Player?
I’ve always used HM :through for descriptive associations - usually I
just want a created_at date so one could determine when a user joined
a group (for example). I don’t see how a “Tracker”, which looks like
a join, makes sense without both a User and a Player.
This is correct understanding:
“resources that should be nested are those that can’t really exist
outside of another resource”
if a resource makes sense outside of the nesting then it shouldn’t be
nested.
the traditional example is Article -> Comments - you could have
Comments outside the context of an article - but they don’t have much
meaning