Elegantly selecting attributes from has_many :through join models in Rails

Question

I\'m wondering what the easiest/most elegant way of selecting attributes from join models in has_many :through associations is.

Lets say we have Items, Catalogs, and Cat

Answer 1

Why don't You just

@item = Item.find(4)
position = @item.catalog_items.first.position

why do you go through catalogs? It doesn't make any sense to me since you are looking for first ANY catalog!?