From: David Heinemeier Hansson Date: 2005-02-13T00:20:08+09:00 Subject: Re: Rails question - ActiveRecord::Base#composed_of > class Person < ActiveRecord::Base > composed_of :family, > :mapping => [%w(family_name name), %w(family_phone > phone), > %w(family_address address)] > end This setup expects that your people table has family_name and family_phone as columns. The aggregation works by presenting multiple fields as one object, so when you do have these columns, you should be able to do: person.family.name and person.family.phone. I'd say this approach is only worth it if you have considerable or very convenient business logic tied to your Family object, though. If it's just data, I'd much rather just save the trouble and do person.family_name. Hint: For faster and more complete assistance, I recommend signing up for the Rails mailing list or visiting IRC. More information on http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/show/HomePage -- David Heinemeier Hansson, http://www.basecamphq.com/ -- Web-based Project Management http://www.rubyonrails.org/ -- Web-application framework for Ruby http://www.loudthinking.com/ -- Broadcasting Brain