Question

In my application I have a polymorphic Idea model. I want to use it with different entities like project, opportunity etc.
In the idea table it is differentiated using ideable_id and ideable_type.
So as an example, for a Project ideable_id is the project_id and ideable_type is Project.
For Opportunity ideable_id is the opportunity_id and ideable_type is Opportunity

I want to create an idea for a model called ideabank. ideabank is a virtual model, it’s not an entity like project or opportunity. How should I create such a model without a database representation which will give me ideable_id and ideable_type?
Or should I leave the fields for ideable_id and ideable_type free while adding idea to ideabank?

Answer 1

If you are using rails 3, see this
http://railscasts.com/episodes/219-active-model

models/message.rb

class Message
  include ActiveModel::Validations
  include ActiveModel::Conversion
  extend ActiveModel::Naming

  attr_accessor :name, :email, :content

  validates_presence_of :name
  validates_format_of :email, :with => /^[-a-z0-9_+\.]+\@([-a-z0-9]+\.)+[a-z0-9]{2,4}$/i
  validates_length_of :content, :maximum => 500

  def initialize(attributes = {})
    attributes.each do |name, value|
      send("#{name}=", value)
    end
  end

  def persisted?
    false
  end
end

messages_controller.rb

def create
  @message = Message.new(params[:message])
  if @message.valid?
    # TODO send message here
    flash[:notice] = "Message sent! Thank you for contacting us."
    redirect_to root_url
  else
    render :action => 'new'
  end
end