Question

I just created new columns in my database for my micropost table and these columns were vote_count comment_count and I want to connect it to the Vote models vote_up count and the Comment models comment count. Since I just added these columns although there were votes and comments, how do I connect these other models to the micropost model to fill in the new columns. Any suggestions are much appreciated!

Micropost Model

class Micropost < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :title, :content, :view_count
  acts_as_voteable
  belongs_to :school
  belongs_to :user
  has_many :comments
  has_many :views
  accepts_nested_attributes_for :comments
end

Answer 1

It looks like what you’re trying to do is use a counter_cache, which rails supports, but you’ve got the names of the columns wrong.

You want to add a comments_count and a votes_count column to your database instead of the ones that you have.

Then you can hook it up to your models as follows:

class Micropost< ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :title, :content, :view_count
  acts_as_voteable
  belongs_to :school
  belongs_to :user
  has_many :comments, :counter_cache => true
  has_many :views
  accepts_nested_attributes_for :comments
end

The votes half of it is a bit more tricky since you’re using some extra code with your acts_as_votable module, but counter caches are the way that you want to go if I understand you correctly.

Here is more info on them: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Associations/ClassMethods.html