How best to associate an Address to multiple models in rails?

Question

This question on SO appears to be related to my question, but I\'m not sure my question is answered by that.

An address can belong to more than one model (UserProfile an

Answer 1

You missed one option: have a class that contains the common behavior and add the fields to all tables. Use a composed_of aggregate to manage the data.

class Address
  attr_accessor :line1, :line2, :city, :state, :zip

  def initialize(line1, line2, city, state, zip)
    @line1 = line1
  end
end

class UserProfile < ActiveRecord::Base
  composed_of :address, :mapping => %w(line1 line2 city state zip)
end

class Event < ActiveRecord::Base
  composed_of :address, :mapping => %w(line1 line2 city state zip)
end

See #composed_of in the Ruby on Rails API docs.