On Aug 24, 2011, at 4:15 PM, Banjoey wrote:
> We currently use excel to store data that is used by scripts to run
> automated tests for our software. Our project scope is expanding, and
> the excel sheets are no longer adequate to meet our needs (multiple
> people needing to enter test data) so I threw together a simple proof
> of concept and my boss really liked it. In fact, I'm now working on
> setting this thing up to go live as soon as I can get it into a semi-
> working state.
>
> My current issue is that I have a "patient" model that needs to have
> certain data associated with it. I need a specific number of fields
> for say "Physicians" (I need exactly 5 physicians), in each patient
> record. I know I can do a has_many relationship, but that's not really
> adequate because each of the "physicians" have to be a specific "type"
> of physician. However, all these physicians (though assigned different
> types) will come from the same pool of names. In fact, it is possible
> that the testers may want one physician to serve as all "types".
It sounds like you're looking for a simple belongs_to relation for each of
them. For concreteness, here's a version with 4 doctor positions:
class Patient < ActiveRecord::Base
fields do
name :string
timestamps
end
belongs_to :head_doctor, :class_name => 'Doctor'
belongs_to :shoulder_doctor, :class_name => 'Doctor'
belongs_to :knee_doctor, :class_name => 'Doctor'
belongs_to :toe_doctor, :class_name => 'Doctor'
end
You'll wind up with head_doctor_id, etc fields in the schema. The default Hobo
behavior for these associations will be to generate a select-one for each,
which should be really close to what you're looking for.
Things get more complicated if you need to deal with uniqueness, but it sounds
like that is explicitly *not* required here.
An alternative, more flexible, way would be to define a join model between
Patient and Doctor and include the "role" as an attribute. However, based on
your description, it sounds like the five roles are pretty central to the
process you're describing and therefore unlikely to change without major
real-world rearchitecturing. Because of that, the join table method seems like
overkill.
--Matt Jones
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