Newbie question - loading DB from script - has_many relation

Rails
1

Hi everyone,

Ok, first off, I’ve read
http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowToPopulateYourDbFromScript
and it was a huge help. I’m loading info with no issue.

EXCEPT when I try to load info into multiple tables, i.e., adding
relationships. I have 2 questions:

  1. I have a Person model with has_many :entitlements. Entitlement
    has_and_belongs_to_many :people. (Maybe they should both be HABTM?).
    There’s a entitlements_people table. When I’m loading them via
    script, what is the correct way to do so? How do I add one? Many?
    Add on to what’s already there?

person = Person.new
person.entitlement = ??
person.save

  1. If the data I’m loading uses entitlement names and not IDs, how do
    I specify the ID? For instance, “wireless” is an entitlement with an
    ID of 1. In my data, I have “wireless” and not “1”. Do I create a
    translation table in my script, or can I ID the entitlement based on
    the name?

Thank you!

Sean

2

Nevermind. I think I found what I need. Had I turned 2 pages past
where I was in the Rails book, I could have avoided sending this. I’m
thinking:

person.entitlements << Entitlement.find_by_name(“wireless”)

Of course, enclosed in a block working on the array of entitlements.

And since there’s the join table, duplicates should be handled. I
think. I didn’t see any specific info about that in the Rails book,
but I’ll check the RDocs.

Sean