Hello, I am new to rails and would appreciate some help optimizing my database usage.
Is there a way to load two models associated with each other with one DB query?
I have two models Person and Image:
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :images
end
class Image < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :person
end
I would like to load a set of people and their associated images with a single trip to the DB using a join command. For instance, in SQL, I can load all the data I need with the following query:
select * from people join images on people.id = images.person_id where people.id in (2, 3) order by timestamp;
So I was hoping that this rails snippet would do what I need:
>> people_and_images = Person.find(:all, :conditions => ["people.id in (?)", "2, 3"], :joins => :images, :order => :timestamp)
This code executes the SQL statement I am expecting and loads the instances of Person I need. However, I see that accessing a a Person's images leads to an additional SQL query.
>> people_and_images[0].images
Image Load (0.004889) SELECT * FROM `images` WHERE (`images`.person_id = 2)
Using the :include option in the call to find() does load both models, however it will cost me an additional SELECT by executing it along with the JOIN.
I would like to do in Rails what I can do in SQL which is to grab all the data I need with one query.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!