Question

class TransactionItem < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :transaction
end 

class Transaction < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :transaction_items

  def items
    self.transaction_items
  end
end



class CategoryItems < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :category
end 

class Category< ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :category_items

  def items
    self.category_items
  end
end

In an effort to simplify the interface to Objects that have Items

are there drawbacks I’m not seeing to this? or a better way to achieve this goal?

category = Category.first
category.items
# instead of
# category.category_items

transaction = Transaction.first
transaction.items
# instead of
# transaction.transaction_items

Answer 1

Another is by specifying the class (see the has_many options docs):

has_many :items, :class_name => "CategoryItem"

I don’t see any major issue with your way, though.

The only caveat would be anything that deals with the associations reflectively (e.g., a documentation tool) would use the “real” name, not the additional method. Not a big deal, but something to be aware of.