One way I might do this is to create a table-less model that serves as a union model. You'll have to write a find_by_sql union query to manually bring your different other models together into one generic data model, and write your own finder method to encapsulate it. Use the find_by_sql to generate particular columns to help determine which model the record originally came from, so you can generate your links correctly.
The benefit of doing it this way is that you can generate your find_by_sql string on the fly with great specificity, but a really complex query can be done as one query to the database. If you have associations you need to bring in, this could get extremely complicated really quickly, though. Or else you bring in your foreign keys and make sure you plug any holes for the types that don't support them. The downside is that you lose ActiveRecord conditions, plus you have to write a complicated union yourself. I haven't seen a union gem that does multi-model selects. And again, be careful if you try to use AR for associations. There are other ways to do this DRYly, that may be better for your situation. This is probably overkill. Maybe you just add some utility methods to your individual models (perhaps through a mix-in to make it DRY) to make it easier to generate your links more cleanly. Then you plug the results into your individual finds into an array, and iterate over that in your view to build the table. View helpers? On Mar 3, 6:56 am, RichardOnRails <[email protected]> wrote: > OK, that was I bad idea because in creating the links I have to > supply stuff specific to each model, so I'm just coding them by > hand. I was just trying to be DRY. > > On Mar 2, 9:03 pm, RichardOnRails > > > > <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm adding a layout to my app that I found > > athttp://www.tutorialspoint.com/ruby-on-rails/rails-layouts.htm. > > > They have a piece that ultimately feeds data into a sidebar: > > class BookController < ApplicationController > > layout 'standard' > > def list > > @books = Book.find(:all) > > end > > > I've got HomeController and I want to feed the names models I got, > > e.g. Home, User, Vendor for now, more to come. So I want to generate > > that list automatically. Then I'll eliminate any I don't want or > > suppress them all for a Logon page, etc. > > > Any ideas? > > > Thanks in advance, > > Richard -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.
