Has_many: how does it work?
First of all let me say that I am coming from the php oldschool framework and outdated practice that I am struggling to undo them. When PHP I found NN situations, I just created a new table and had a 1-N relationship to this new table. Example:
tbl_users
tbl_posts
Relations:
tbl_users N-N tbl_posts
So I just created in a new table and made a 1-N (common has_many) relationship. Example:
tbl_users 1-N tbl_like_posts
tbl_posts 1-N tbl_like_posts
I don't know if there was anything equivalent and I didn't use it because I was never charged. But the reality is I looked at has_many: through and couldn't get it in my head. Why can't I do what I did before? What: through specials? What will it make it easier for me I even understand how to use but did not understand why to use.
Sorry if the question was silly, but I'm trying to drop PHP dependencies and learn rails correctly.
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You have two options:
1) Let Rails resolve it for you with an association has_and_belongs_to_many
(under the hood, Rails will create a new table to make a many-to-many relationship, but you don't have to deal with it directly);
2) Specify which table you want to use (just like when using PHP) via has_many :through
You can check the docs here: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html#the-has-and-belongs-to-many-association
Another useful link should be RailsCast: http://railscasts.com/episodes/47-two-many-to-many
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