Question

I have 2 models (player and team linked through the model lnkteamplayer)

Team has_many players through lnkteamplayer
Player has_many teams through lnkteamplayer

I need to retrieve all players not belonging to a specific team.

<% @players = Player.find(:all, :conditions => ["id != ?",@team.lnkteamplayers.player_id ]) %>

I am getting an error with above line of code. My question is how do i pass an array of values in the above condition.

Thanks for any suggestion provided.

Answer 1

You’ve got a couple of problems there:

1) the first part of conditions, “id != ?”, is a fragment of sql, and in sql you do “not equals” as <> not !=. Eg "id <> ?"

2) To use an array, the sql syntax is id in (1,2,3) or id not in (1,2,3). In your conditions you can do this like :conditions => ["id not in (?)", array_of_ids]

So, you could get players not on a team like this:

@team = Team.find(params[:team_id])
@not_on_team = Player.find(:all, :conditions => ["id not in (?)", @team.player_ids])