Question

In my rails 3 model, I have two classes: Product, Service. I want both to be of type InventoryItem because I have another model called Store and Store has_many :InventoryItems

This is what I’m trying to get to, but I’m not sure how to model this in my InventoryItem model and my Product and Service models. Should InventoryItem just be a parent class that Product and Service inherit from, or should InventoryItem be modeled as a class abstract of which Product and Service extend from.

Thanks in advance for the advice!

Answer 1

I’d use neither, and follow what Mörre suggested to have InventoryItem be a join model:

class Store
  has_many :inventory_items
  has_many :products, :services, :through => :inventory_items
end

class InventoryItem
  belongs_to :store
  belongs_to :products, :services
end

class Product
  has_many :inventory_items
  has_many :stores, :through => :inventory_items
end

class Service
  has_many :inventory_items
  has_many :stores, :through => :inventory_items
end