Should I use has_one or belongs_to in ruby on rails?

Question

I want to have a model called Status which will be relatively static after some user-defined set up (and different users may have different values on status).

The status can apply to different Models, such as Contact and Events.

so contact.status set of possible values will be different from event.status

I want to design the app so that status table has different types (contacts and events).

What is the right strategy and format for this?

I am thinking of saying that:

Contacts :has_one Status

and store a status_id in the contacts table. Ditto with Events.

Status table will have the status value, type, and date.

does this make sense? Can you suggest a better approach?

Answer 1

Firstly, the has_one relationship does not store an id in the current model. It looks for a foreign key in the relative table. In order to store a status_id in Contacts or Events you'd use belongs_to.

Secondly, depending on the type of information you're storing in Status, why does it need to be its own separate table? Why not make a status column in each model you want to use status on? A little more information may be useful here.

Answer 2

There is a guide on this very question. Your situation is slightly different in that it seems as though your Status model really needs to be polymorphic since different things will be 'statusable'.

To answer your question, Contact/Event has_one Status does make sense to me.