Which Active record association should I use - ruby-on-rails-5

Question

I'm using rails 5.1.4 , so I have a table USER within I store all the users, then a user can send friend request to other users, and I want to store that request into other table named FRIEND, like user_1 ( who send the request) - user_2 (who is requested for) , but you will understand that those two user (user_1, user_2) are coming from USER table.
It means: first I have this table Users which contains all the users. And what I want to say is that any user in this table user can be friend with any other user from the same table user.

Answer 1

I'm not 100% certain what your asking in your question but it sounds like what you're looking to do is to have a table called Users and another table called Friends and to be able to store a value for the friend request. I believe what you want to look into is a "has_many :through association" using a "join table". Check out this video it walks you through it http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/what-is-a-has_many-through-association-in-ruby-on-rails-treehouse-quick-tip
here's more info on the Active Record association http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html#the-has-many-through-association
EDIT:
Based on your below post what you want to do is just a simple has_many association. In your User model add has_many :friends, dependent: :destroy and in your Friend model add belongs_to :users now go to your routes file and make friends a nested route of user by doing
# nested routes for users
resources :users do
resources :friends
end
in your friends table make sure you add a foreign key for users lik ethis in the migration t.references :user, foreign_key: true
now in your friends_controller you need to update the actions like this. Replace the example "patent" with your "friend" object.
class PatentsController < ApplicationController
# first loads #user and then #patent for the below actions.
before_action :set_user, only: [:index, :show, :new, :edit, :create, :update]
before_action :set_patent, only: [:show, :edit, :update, :destroy]
# GET /patents
# GET /patents.json
def index
#patents = #user.patents
end
# GET /patents/1
# GET /patents/1.json
def show
end
# GET /patents/new
def new
#patent = #user.patents.new
end
# GET /patents/1/edit
def edit
end
# POST /patents
# POST /patents.json
def create
#patent = #user.patents.new(patent_params)
respond_to do |format|
if #patent.save
format.html { redirect_to user_patents_path(#patent.user), notice: 'Patent was successfully created.' }
format.json { render :show, status: :created, location: #patent }
else
format.html { render :new }
format.json { render json: #patent.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
# PATCH/PUT /patents/1
# PATCH/PUT /patents/1.json
def update
respond_to do |format|
if #patent.update(patent_params)
format.html { redirect_to user_patents_path(#patent.user), notice: 'Patent was successfully updated.' }
format.json { render :show, status: :ok, location: #patent }
else
format.html { render :edit }
format.json { render json: #patent.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
# DELETE /patents/1
# DELETE /patents/1.json
def destroy
#patent.destroy
respond_to do |format|
format.html { redirect_to user_url(#user), notice: 'Patent was successfully destroyed.' }
format.json { head :no_content }
end
end
#######################
# private methods
#######################
private
# Use callbacks to share common setup or constraints between actions.
def set_user
#user = User.find(params[:user_id])
end
def set_patent
#patent = Patent.find(params[:id])
end
# Never trust parameters from the scary internet, only allow the white list through.
def patent_params
params.require(:patent).permit(:patent_title, :patent_office, :patent_number, :patent_status, :patent_date, :patent_description, :user_id)
end
end