Rails - storing multiple value in database using checkbox

Question

I am having a model investor_profile.rb

I am having a field where he/she can choose various options(acquiring a business, lending to a business,...) in checkbox. Form code below.

<%= form_with model: @investor_profile do |f| %>
      <%= f.label :interested_in %>
      <% interests.each do |activity| %>
        <%= f.check_box :interested_in, { multiple: true }, activity, nil %>
       <% end %>
      <%= f.submit %>
<%= end %>

How can i design a database for storing multiple values? If it is a single value i can store it in interested_in column in investor_profile table.

@LolWalid Can i use a third model called investor_interests and add list of values to it? like i can access it via user.investor_profiles.first.interested_in will return a list of selected interests? — Praveen KJ
– Praveen KJ, Commented Jun 28, 2019 at 12:49
That's the idea , i m posting my answer. You need to add a join_table ! (my response is with User And Intereset table) — LolWalid
– LolWalid, Commented Jun 28, 2019 at 13:02

twinster · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-28 13:10:57Z

As I understand you want to save several interests on your each investor_profiles record.

You have to create third model investor_interests, where you will have all of the interest options. You also need connection table called for example investor_profile_interests, which will belong to both, investor interests and investor profiles. In the investor_profile_interests table you will have investor_profile_id and investor_interest_id.

So that:
InvestorProfile has many InvestorProfileInterest
InvestorProfileInterest belongs to InvestorProfile
InvestorProfileInterest belongs to InvestorInterest

In this case you will have many to many relationship with investor_interests and will be able to store several interests on each profile.

connection table will look like following:

**investor_profile_id**  **investor_interest_id**    
-----------------------------------------------------
        1                        1
        1                        2
        1                        3

LolWalid · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-28 13:33:19Z

What you want is a join table between your User and Interest models

You want to have something like this

users table
id
1
2
3

interests table 
id name
1 "interest 1"
2 "interest 2"
3 "interest 3"

interest_users table (the join table)
id interest_id user_id
1  1           1        # User 1 is interesed in interest 1
1  2           1        # User 1 is interesed in interest 2
1  3           1        # User 1 is interesed in interest 3
1  3           2        # User 2 is interesed in interest 3

User 3 is interesed in nothing!

Let's do it with rails

First create the join_table through a migration, create_join_table rails documentation

# db/create_join_table_user_interest.rb
class CreateJoinTableUserInterest < ActiveRecord::Migration[5.1]
  def change
    create_join_table :user, :interest do |t|
      t.index %i[user_ud interest_id]
      t.index %i[interest_id user_ud]
    end
  end
end

Then create the joining model InterestUser, each row of the joining model belongs to both table!

# models/user_interest.rb
class InterestUser < ApplicationRecord
  belongs_to :user
  belongs_to :interest
end

Update your models to tell it, it has interests (look at the rails through tutorial )

# model/user.rb
class User < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :user_interests
  has_many :interests, through: :user_interest
end

# model/interest.rb
class Interest < ApplicationRecord
  has_many :user_interests
  has_many :user, through: :user_interest
end

papacool · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-28 18:01:52Z

0

When submitting your form, params["investor_profile"]["interested_in"] will return an array of string from interests in your controller.

That is why the simplest solution using the rails way is to store this value in a text column interested_in in your investor_profiles table.

Just add the following code in your model to serialize the array.

class InvestorProfile < ActiveRecord::Base
  serialize :interested_in, Array
end

Then you can save easily the params without formatting.

I made the assumption interests is only a list of tag and that you don't have interests table.

The limit of the serialization is that you cannot use efficient SQL query to filter investor_profiles on their interests.

answered Jun 28, 2019 at 18:01

papacool

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