Rails - Jan 2006 - Rails Newb: Foreign Key Views?

I''m a total rails newbie, but I''m learning fast.  I have a
question that
I can''t seem to find an answer for:

What is the best way of coding views that represent foreign key
relationships?

For example, while developing, I''ve created an "articles"
table.  I
create some scaffolding code and modify it all to look nice. I then
realise, I need an article_categories related table.

I make the change in the database, modify the models with the
"belongs_to" and "has_many", but what is the best way to
update my views
(edit/new in particular)?

I want to have a drop-down list when editing or creating an article that
allows me to select a category.

There is an example in the Agile book, but that refers to an array.  I
also found an example in the onlamp tutorials, but that doesn''t use the
"_form.rhtml" file, which I think would work better.

Is there a recommended way to do this?

Thanks,
Dan

I have sellers, which sell time in units of time ( i.e. minutes,  
quarter hours, or hours )

Sellers need to set their units when they sign up.

In app/helpers/sellers_helper.rb I have:

   def get_units
     Unit.find(:all,
               :order => ''seconds'').map {|u| [u.name,
u.id]}
   end

(in this case I need them all, not just those related to the
  seller, so it''s not a related join, but it certainly could be.
  If it were, I''d create a method in the Seller class to return
  related units...)

in app/views/sellers/_form.rhtml I have:

<%= text_field ''seller'',''rate'' %> per
<%= select ''seller'',''unit_id'',
get_units %>

I think that''s pretty clean.

-- 
-- Tom Mornini

On Jan 5, 2006, at 9:02 AM, Dan Harper wrote:
> I''m a total rails newbie, but I''m learning fast.  I have
a question
> that
> I can''t seem to find an answer for:
>
> What is the best way of coding views that represent foreign key
> relationships?
>
> For example, while developing, I''ve created an
"articles" table.  I
> create some scaffolding code and modify it all to look nice. I then
> realise, I need an article_categories related table.
>
> I make the change in the database, modify the models with the
> "belongs_to" and "has_many", but what is the best way
to update my
> views
> (edit/new in particular)?
>
> I want to have a drop-down list when editing or creating an article  
> that
> allows me to select a category.
>
> There is an example in the Agile book, but that refers to an array.  I
> also found an example in the onlamp tutorials, but that doesn''t
use
> the
> "_form.rhtml" file, which I think would work better.
>
> Is there a recommended way to do this?
>
> Thanks,
> Dan
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

Hi Tom,

I was looking for something elegant and that does look like a good way
of doing it.

If anyone has any other ideas, please pass them on!

Thanks,
Dan

On Thu, 2006-01-05 at 09:13 -0500, Tom Mornini wrote:
> I have sellers, which sell time in units of time ( i.e. minutes,  
> quarter hours, or hours )
> 
> Sellers need to set their units when they sign up.
> 
> In app/helpers/sellers_helper.rb I have:
> 
>    def get_units
>      Unit.find(:all,
>                :order => ''seconds'').map {|u| [u.name,
u.id]}
>    end
> 
> (in this case I need them all, not just those related to the
>   seller, so it''s not a related join, but it certainly could be.
>   If it were, I''d create a method in the Seller class to return
>   related units...)
> 
> in app/views/sellers/_form.rhtml I have:
> 
> <%= text_field ''seller'',''rate'' %>
per <%= select ''seller'',''unit_id'',
> get_units %>
> 
> I think that''s pretty clean.
>