Rails Arrays and Mysql

Question

I have a User with one or more email addresses, and I don't want to create a new table for emails. The idea was to store email addresses as Array, but how do I implement this in the controller and the model? This is the controller

class UsersController < ApplicationController
def update
@user =User.find(params[:id])

if @user.update_attributes(user_params)
  redirect_to :action => 'show', :id => @user

Is it possible to check during update if the email parameter is already there or a new one and if it is new add it to an Array? I don't know if I made myself clear, but thanks anyway for any answer you or suggestion you will provide! By the way, I am using mysql and I can't switch to a different one!

Ravi Sankar Raju · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-24 00:22:33Z

6

you can store it as a comma separated list.

or use rails serialize to do the job

For example,

class User < ActiveRecord::Base 
    serialize :emails, Array 
end

would maintain the array format when retrieved as user.emails. you can always validate whether an email is present in an array.

But my suggestion is to have a separate model. Future might hold new features like assigning primary and secondary emails and what not. then this design would not be so helpful

answered Feb 24, 2015 at 0:22

Ravi Sankar Raju

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5 Comments

Ravi Sankar Raju Over a year ago

P.S - Any class type can be passed on to the serialize directive. Array, Hash, JSON another activerecord too possibly

Jack Over a year ago

Thank you very much! I am actually using active_model_serializer to render data as Json for an Ember Client. Do you think I can do the same thing through active_model_serializer? Thank you again for you answer!

Ravi Sankar Raju Over a year ago

From what I read about active_model_serializer from railscasts.com/episodes/409-active-model-serializers, it seems to be more of a representational utility (convert ActiveRecord to json and hence create an API). but here, our goal is to store object in a serialized fashion. I think this will not serve the purpose. Its understandable to want to use one fix for all :) Been there! P.S - rails serialize is part of rails already and so you don't have to feel like using unwanted extra gem or something. Its there for us developers to exploit.

Jack Over a year ago

Thank you very much my friend! You've been very helpful! I will follow your suggestions and eventually I'll let you know the results! Have a nice day!

Aleksandrus Over a year ago

This answer solves our problems, but how do we query array items. In this example (emails): assume we have ['[email protected]','[email protected]']. how do we query users that have '[email protected]'? how do we query users that have 'blah.com' emails?

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