Question

I need to allow the users of my web app to create custom forms.

A user might want to create something like this: age, sex, height, answer1, answer2, …, answer 10.

Another might want something like: shoe size, weight, answer1, answer2, …, answer 6.

Each one will have multiple entries (possibly 1000+), they WILL need to be stored in a relational database, most likely MySQL.

What is the best way to implement this? Do I create a table in the database for each one of these forms and store its name to allow future reference to it?

Thanks.

Answer 1

If using a relational database, here is one way to accomplish this:

class Form < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :form_fields
  has_many :form_values
end

class FormField < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :form
  has_many :form_values
end

class FormValue < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :form_field
  belongs_to :form
end

I’m sure there are other ways to do it. Document-oriented databases may provide other options.