Question

I’m building a user ranking system, and am trying to assign user.rank values with a name.
I wanted to define something like this in my User model and then be able to reference it when displaying each user’s rank, but this probably isn’t the best way:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base  
  RANK_NAMES = {
   'Peasant'   => (0..75),
   'Craftsman' => (76..250),
   'Vassal'    => (251..750),
   'Noble'     => (750..1500),
   'Monarch'   => (1501..999999)
  }

Perhaps it would be better to define a method in a controller or helper like:

if user.rank == 0..75
  rank_name = "Peasant"
elsif...

But not sure how to do that. Anyone have any thoughts? I’m not even sure what to call what it is I’m trying to do, thus making it difficult to research on my own.

Answer 1

It could be something even as simple as this, assuming user.rank exists.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  ...
  def rank_name
    case self.rank
      when 0..75
        'Peasant'
      when 76..250
        'Craftsman'
      when 251..750
        'Vassal'
      when 750..1500
        'Noble'
      when 1501..999999
        'Monarch'
    end
  end
  ...
end