Question

I was using Ryan Bates’s source code for railscasts #141 in order to create a simple shopping cart. In one of the migrations, he lists

class CreateProducts < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    create_table :products do |t|
      t.belongs_to :category
      t.string :name
      t.decimal :price
      t.text :description
      t.timestamps
    end
  end

  def self.down
    drop_table :products
  end
end

Here is the Product model:

class Product < ActiveRecord::Base
 belongs_to :category
end

What is the t.belongs_to :category line? Is that an alias for t.integer category_id?

Answer 1

The t.belongs_to :category is just a special helper method of rails passing in the association.

If you look in the source code belongs_to is actually an alias of references