On Nov 7, 2011, at 1:26 PM, Mauro wrote: > On 7 November 2011 13:43, Colin Law <clan...@googlemail.com> wrote: >> On 7 November 2011 12:15, Mauro <mrsan...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> I always has doubts on using has_and_belongs_to_many rather than >>> has_many :through association. >>> I have a model like this: >>> >>> class Company < ActiveRecord::Base >>> has_many :categories >>> has_many :legal_representatives >>> has_many :tenders >>> has_many :documents >>> end >>> >>> I don't see any way to use another model for these associations, do >>> you think it's better to use has_many :through anyway? >> >> I don't understand what you are asking, you do not appear to be using >> habtm or has many through. Perhaps you can clarify the question >> further > > For example: I have a Company with many legal_representatives and a > LegaRepresentative that has many companies. > In this case you use a has_and_belongs_to_many or has_many :through? > What's reasoning that leads me to select has_and_belongs_to_many > rather than has_many :through?
You choose has_many :through when you need to "decorate" the junction between the two models. Let's say that you needed to capture the date that a particular legal representative entered into an agreement with a company. You can't capture that in the strict habtm relationship -- that's just a "dumb" join table and can only store the fact that the relationship exists. Walter -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.
