You could create a separate Abbreviation model that your Company model could be associated with through a join model CompanyAbbreviation. Then there would be one join table record for each column in a specific company record. Rather than having each abbreviation as a column in your companies table you would have secondary keys in your company_abbreviations table referring to the associated company and abbreviation records.
Something like the following:
class Company < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :company_abbreviations
has_many :abbreviations, :through => :company_abbreviations
end
class Abbreviation < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :company_abbreviations
end
class CompanyAbbreviation < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :company
belongs_to :abbreviation
end
class CreateAbbreviations < ActiveRecord::Migration
def self.up
create_table :abbreviations do |t|
t.string :abbr
t.string :description
end
add_index :abbreviations, :abbr
end
end
class CreateCompanyAbbreviations < ActiveRecord::Migration
def self.up
create_table :company_abbreviations do |t|
t.references :company
t.references :abbreviation
end
add_index :company_abbreviations, :company_id
add_index :company_abbreviations, :abbreviation_id
end
end
In db/seeds.db you could pre-populate your abbreviations table.
You add new associations like this:
@company.company_abbreviations.create(:abbreviation => Abbreviation.find_by_abbr("LTD"))
In your view you can reference the expanded abbreviation columns cleanly like this:
<% @company.abbreviations.each do |abbr| %>
<%= abbr.description %>
<% end %>
You may also want to control the display order in some fashion, say by a sort column in the join table,