Rails - Mar 2007 - DRY AR models

Hey,

I need an advice ;)

Assuming you have a form like:
Father''s kids: <%= in_place_editor_field %>
Mother''s kids: <%= in_place_editor_field %>

with just a Person model.

You want your customers to write directly:
Father''s kids: mike,dave,chad
Mother''s kids: david

I think a proper method to do this is:
 1/ Create Father < Person and Mother < Person models
 2/ Create in those models accessors:
	def kids=(value)
	  value.split('','').each do |kid|
	    child = Person.find_by_name(kid)
	    child.nil? Person.create(:name => kid, :parent_id => self.id) :
child.parent_id = self.id
	  end
	  self.save
	end

	def kids
	  # find etc.
	end
 3/ Simply put @father_kids & @mother_kids in your controller

But that''s not DRY at all. So to improve this code, we could simply put
in a ''lib/people.rb'' file:
	@people = [''father'',''mother'']
	@people.each do |parent|
	# define_method("#{kids=}") etc.
	end

and require the file in our models.
Actually, it''s what I have done in my project, and it works (hope you
don''t find this ugly :)).

My question is: that not DRY enough. I mean, if you want to add an:
Sister''s kids: etc.
You''ll need to generate a model, require the same files etc.

So, is it ''recommended'' (''authorized'', is it
proper code?) to add
Classes on-the-file to AR? I mean, not to
write Father.rb, Mother.rb but just create a load_classes.rb (required
in boot.rb I suppose) which define_class (oops,
http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/ returns me a define_class (WIN32COMGen)<--
?!) after AR has reconized the Person model.

Actually, you can do it with a rake file but you need to regenerate it
whenever you change your @people array.

Thanks for your replies.

-- 
,========================.
| Pierre-Alexandre Meyer |
| email : pam-1sEOgp2Wo8Qdnm+yROfE0A@public.gmane.org |
`========================'' 

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