From: Mike Harris <GENIE@...>
Date: 2006-11-01T23:59:22+09:00
Subject: Re: Syntax q on ActiveRecord

Ike wrote:

>"Mike Harris" <GENIE@prodigy.net> wrote in message 
>news:4547AC2E.9020102@prodigy.net...
>  
>
>>Ike wrote:
>>    
>>
>
>  
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>>Using the column names primary_associate_id and secondary_associate_id, 
>>instead of associatekey1 and associatekey2
>>
>>class Customer < ActiveRecord::Base
>> belongs_to :primary_associate, :class_name => 'Associate', :foreign_key 
>>=> 'primary_associate_id'
>> belongs_to :secondary_associate, :class_name => 'Associate', :foreign_key 
>>=> 'secondary_associate_id'
>>end
>>
>>Rails automatically infers the class_name and foreign_key from the name of 
>>your association.  You can always just name your association whatever you 
>>want and specify those things explicitly, like I do here.
>>    
>>
>
>Thanks Mike,
>
>I'm stuck with legacy DB column names here however -- I think maybe I need 
>to look deeper into the ActiveRecord source. Thanks for your help. -Ike 
>
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>  
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I just changed the names of the columns in my example cause I felt like 
it.  This is perfectly fine as well

class Customer < ActiveRecord::Base
 belongs_to :primary_associate, :class_name => 'Associate', :foreign_key => 'associatekey1'
 belongs_to :secondary_associate, :class_name => 'Associate', :foreign_key => 'associatekey2'
end

The :foreign_key option tells it the name of the column you are using. 

Have you looked at the manual that was linked earlier in the thread?

http://api.rubyonrails.com/

Here's the specific page for this

http://api.rubyonrails.com/classes/ActiveRecord/Associations/ClassMethods.html#M000532

The documentation isn't great, but for most problems at this level it 
tells you what you need to know.