Question

I have a simple setup of Account and User :

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :users
end

accounts
--------
id
name
...

.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :account
end

users
-----
id
account_id
username
...

Now, how do I design that an Account has an “owner” (a user that has full privileges over the account). The options I can think of:

1. Add a boolean field on User called account_owner? (Does not feel right to me)
2. Add a field on accounts table called user_id, thus creating a kind of chicken-and-egg problem.
3. Something else? Roles?

Answer 1

Would something like this work? You’d need to add an owner_id foreign key to Account.

class Account < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :owner, class_name: "User"
  has_many :users
end

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :account
end

# Somewhere in your code...

account = Account.create(name: "Account 1")
owner   = User.create(username: "tom")

account.users << owner
account.users << User.create(username: "sarah")
account.owner = owner
account.save