I have an organization table for example
ID, name, address, phone, email, etc...
Now I want to add multiple addresses, phones and emails.
Is it a good way to store json data in email column like this
[ "[email protected]", "[email protected]", "[email protected]" ]
Or create another table just for emails and another for phones etc...
If storing json data is better - what is the best way to use it in rails?
Here is what I found
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html
Saving arrays, hashes, and other non-mappable objects in text columns
Storing data as a JSON string in a single database field means that you will not be able to manipulate/query the data using SQL - which kind of defeats the point of storing the data in a database, you may as well store it in a text file.
I'd recommend a one-to-many relationship between your organization table and tables for email addresses and phone numbers. See video explaining different relationship types
ID (this will be the othertable.id or organizations.id), Type (this will identify which table this record is for, I usually just have this as varchar and use a string to identify and index it) and telephone_id this will tell you where to fetch the telephone number fromorganization_id and othertable_id in your telephone tablesuggest you store those information in a single table. according to your requirement.it seems use a good polymorphic model will be better.
The code may like this.
module MultiAttr
def self.included(base)
base.send :extend, ClassMethods
end
module ClassMethods
def multi_attr(*args)
args.each do |attr_name|
class_eval <<-EOF
has_many attr_#{attr_name}, :class_name => "MultiAttributes", :as => :owner,
:conditions => {:key => '#{attr_name.singularize}'}
def add_#{attr_name.singularize}(val)
self.attr_#{attr_name}.create(:key => #{attr_name.singularize}, :value => val)
#{attr_name}
end
def #{attr_name}
self.attr_#{attr_name}.map(&:to_attr_model)
end
EOF
end
end
end
end
class AttrModel < String
def initialize(record)
@record = record
super(record.value)
end
def remove
@record.destroy
end
end
#owner_type, owner_id, key, value
class MultiAttribute < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :owner, :polymorphic => true
def to_attr_model
@attr_model ||= AttrModel.new(self)
end
end
how to use
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
include MultiAttr
multi_attr :emails, :addresses
end
user.emails #=> ["[email protected]"]
user.add_email "[email protected]" #=>
user.emails.first.remove
these codes not tested. but its my basic idea.
