Rails - Jun 2006 - Sharing primary key between two tables?

Hello,

I have an ActiveRecord question.
I have two tables, "customers" and "users". Those two tables
really
should share their primary key, in order to have a "real" 1:1 
relationship.

(I don''t mean to start a database-resign religious war, but I must say 
that I do feel very uneasy about using ActiveRecord''s
"normal" way,
which is to stick a foreign key into one of the two tables. That does 
NOT look like a 1:1 or 1:0 relationship to me!)

With ActiveRecords I can then use belongs_to this way:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_one :customer, :foreign_key => "id"
end

class Customer < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_one :user, :foreign_key => "id"
end

This should actually work. However, I read all over the internet (AND in 
the agile book) scary messages about not allowing ActiveRecords having 
an auto_increment primary key. In my case, I would have an 
auto_increment for "users", which means that every time I create a 
customer, I will also need to create a user forst and use THAT primary 
key for the customer.

I am using Postgresql. Now... am I gonna run into endless, weird 
problems if I disable the auto_increment for customers? Or is it safe 
for me to do so? Is ActiveRecords gonna allow me to pass the :id when I 
create a record without any dramas? Is this "documented/safe"?

Thanks a lot,

Merc.


-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Hi,

Here:
> class User < ActiveRecord::Base
>   has_one :customer, :foreign_key => "id"
> end
> 
> class Customer < ActiveRecord::Base
>   has_one :user, :foreign_key => "id"
> end
I actualy meant:

 class User < ActiveRecord::Base
   belongs_to :customer, :foreign_key => "id"
 end

 class Customer < ActiveRecord::Base
   belongs_to :user, :foreign_key => "id"
 end

Bye,

Merc.

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.