Ruby on Rails: Allowing separate Calendars to share the same Event? -

i'm having trouble theory (and code) behind events creator. quick overview: have customers (the users) each own calendar. calendar belongs_to customer each calendar has_many events, , event belongs_to calendar:

#customer.rb class customer < activerecord::base   belongs_to :business   has_one :calendar, :dependent => :destroy ... end   #calendar.rb class calendar < activerecord::base   belongs_to :customer   has_many :events, :dependent => :destroy     end  #event.rb class event < activerecord::base   belongs_to :calendar  end 

when customer fills in form in events\new.html.erb events_controller's create action picks info form, including array id_array of each participant customer creator of event wished involved.

so far, have made events_controller iterates through array , creates corresponding event each of participating customer's calendar:

def create      @calendar = current_customer.calendar     @newevent = @calendar.events.build(event_params) #creates event in creator's calendar      @participant_ids = params[:id_array]      @participant_ids.each |item| #iterates through id array, finds corresponding customer , creates event       @participant = customer.find(item)       @part_calendar = @participant.calendar        @part_event = @part_calendar.events.build(event_params) #adds event participant's calendar     end      if @newevent.save       redirect_to '/main' #'/main/#{@calendar.id}'     else       redirect_to '/compose'       end    end 

however, not satisfactory, because none of these events created connected each other @ all. know best efficient , rubyish way allow these customer's calendars share event (or share unique identifier). if creator decides delete event, deleted participating calendars.

here event db migrate file reference:  class createevents < activerecord::migration   def change     create_table :events |t|        t.timestamps       t.references :calendar, foreign_key: true        t.string :name       t.string :description       t.date :day       t.datetime :starts_at       t.datetime :ends_at       t.string :location      end   end end 

you can have event self referenced: event have many events , belongs event:

model

class event < activerecord::base   has_many :events, dependent: :destroy   belongs_to :event, class_name: "event" end 

you have add event_id migration integer

controller

  def create     @calendar = current_customer.calendar     @newevent = @calendar.events.build(event_params) #creates event in creator's calendar      if @newevent.save       # wait until it's saved because need id       @participant_ids = params[:id_array]       @participant_ids.each |item|         @participant = customer.find(item)         @part_calendar = @participant.calendar          # merge newly created event id params         @part_event = @part_calendar.events.           build(event_params.merge(event_id: @newevent.id))         @part_event.save       end       redirect_to '/main' #'/main/#{@calendar.id}'     else       redirect_to '/compose'     end   end 

this way have this:

let's customer has calendar , through form created event , selected other customers part of event:

the current_customer have new event, each of other customers selected have new event ( have shared parent event new event of current_customer). way:

• the newly created event have children events via event.events wiched
• if destroy event of current_customer, it's children events destroy
• you can access parent event of particular event via event.event