Rails - Jun 2006 - Describing a "replaces" relationship within the same model

Hi!

I would like to describe the relationships between two objects of a 
model, where one of the objects replaces the other.  I want to be able 
to tell if one object has been replaced and, if so, by what object; and 
vice versa what object an object replaces, if any. My idea was the 
following:

create_table :events do |t|
  t.column :replacement_id, :integer
  t.column :description, :text, :null => false
end

create_table :replacements, {:id => false} do |t|
  t.column :original_id, :integer, :null => false
  t.column :new_id, :integer, :null => false
  t.column :date, :date, :null => false
end

Is this a reasonable model and, if so, how should I link Event and 
Replacement together?

My idea for the above was: An Event can belong to a Replacement and a 
Replacement has an original Event and a new Event.  One can thus tell if 
an Event replaces or is replaced by another Event by looking at what 
member of a Replacement an Event belongs to, i.e., if it is equal to 
Replacement#original or Replacement#new.  I also want to know the date 
when the replacement was made.

Any suggestions are welcome.

  nikolai

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Nikolai Weibull wrote:
> create_table :replacements, {:id => false} do |t|
Hm, I guess doing :id => false here isn''t right, so it should be

create_table :replacements do |t|

After realizing this the set up becomes the following:

create_table :events do |t|
  t.column :replacement_id, :integer
  t.column :description, :text, :null => false
end

create_table :replacements do |t|
  t.column :original_id, :integer, :null => false
  t.column :new_id, :integer, :null => false
  t.column :date, :date, :null => false
end

And the models will be:

class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :replacement
end

class Replacement < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :original,
             :class_name => "Event"
             :foreign_key => "original_id"
  belongs_to :new,
             :class_name => "Event"
             :foreign_key => "new_id"
end

Does that seem reasonable?

I guess what confused me is that I always seem to read "belongs_to" as
"belongs to", which makes sense for Event, instead of
"references",
which makes sense for Replacement, as is sometimes what you''re trying
to
achieve.

  nikolai

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