Question

Consider these as my table structure

class Physician < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :appointments
  has_many :patients, :through => :appointments
end

class Appointment < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :physician
  belongs_to :patient
end

class Patient < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :appointments
  has_many :physicians, :through => :appointments
end

My Appointments table has an extra column called relationship. Everytime when i associate the Physician and the patient, I would like to add a relationship [my example sounds weird at so many levels] , how can i insert value into that column?

Answer 1

Why not just this?

patient = Patient.create(:name => 'Humpty Dumpty')
physician = Physician.create(:name => "All the King's horses and all the King's men")
appointment = Appointment.create(:patient => patient, :physician => physician, :relationship => 'surgeon')