Question

I want to turn Model.attribute into Attribute.models.

e.g. I currently have Model.first.attribute => "string" and I’d like to add belongs_to :attributes into the Model.rb, and then after creating Attribute.rb, add has_many :models

I’ve added a column into the Model table for :attribute_id, and I am trying to do something like

Model.each do |m|
  a = Attribute.find_or_create_by_name(m.attribute)
  m.update_attribute("attribute_id", a.id)
end

Is this the right way to accomplish this?

Answer 1

If Model has_many :attributes (and Attribute belongs_to :model), then there should be a model_id in the Attribute model.

Then you could do

Model.all.each do |m|
  m.attributes.create!(:name => m.attribute) unless m.attributes.find_by_name(m.attribute)
end

UPDATE

What you did seems to be OK for me then. The only problem is you’d have a column attribute and another on named attribute_id with a belongs_to in Model . I don’t know how ActiveRecord would react when you’d type Model.first.attribute.