CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsactiverecord
spitz
spitz

Reputation: 113

How to make a resource that belongs_to multiple users in Rails

I'm setting up an app that has Users and Brands. Most users will not be associated with a brand, and will only be able to comment on Brand pages. Some users, however, will be associated with a single brand. I want these users to be the "admins" or owners of this brand. E.g. Users A and B are both "admins" of a brand, and so can create/edit/update the brand, etc. My question is, how should I set up the Brand resource such that it "belongs_to" multiple users? I understand that I could say brands have_many users, but is it weird to say that an object "has" a user? Is it more appropriate to "belong" to users? This description leads me to believe so: "For example, it makes more sense to say that a supplier owns an account than that an account owns a supplier."

Upvotes: 0

Views: 234

Answers (1)

SteveTurczyn
SteveTurczyn

Reputation: 36860

It's definitely a has_many relationship.

But it may be clearer to refer to those special users as 'administrators' or 'admins'

class Brand
  has_many :administrators, class_name: 'User'
end

If it turns out that a user can be administrator for several brands, then you'll need a join table, either HABTM or HMT. HMT is the better choice in case you want to store characteristics about the join (e.g. when he became administrator)

class BrandUser
  belongs_to :user
  belongs_to :brand
end

class Brand
  has_many :brand_users
  has_many :administrators, through: :brand_users, source: :user
end

class User
  has_many :brand_users
  has_many :brands, through: :brand_users
end

Upvotes: 2

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