Ruby on Rails model Confusion

Question

I came across the following code which is beyond my understating. I'm working hard to grasp it completely from previous 3 days but couldn't.

class TestUser < ActiveRecord::Base
   self.table_name = 'garden'

   belongs_to :account
   accepts_nested_attributes_for :garden

The entire above code is not understandable for me.

Answer 1

class TestUser < ActiveRecord::Base
   self.table_name = 'garden'
   authenticates_with_sorcery!

   belongs_to :account
   accepts_nested_attributes_for :garden

Breaking it down line by line:

class TestUser < ActiveRecord::Base

This is defining a class called TestUser which is inherited from ActiveRecord::Base . All models in rails connected to active record (ie having a database table) have the same signature. Inheriting from ActiveRecord::Base provide TestUser model with some magical abilities. Read more about it at http://guides.rubyonrails.org/active_record_basics.html

self.table_name = 'garden'

This line is saying that the table that TestUser model should connect to is garden . By default TestUser model is linked to test_users table. This line is changing that behavior.

Actually, it should be gardens as all table names should be plural; gardens table is for storing information about many garden objects.

Read about table_name at http://apidock.com/rails/ActiveRecord/ModelSchema/ClassMethods/table_name

authenticates_with_sorcery!

This line says the system uses sorcery gem for authentication. Learn more about it at http://railscasts.com/episodes/283-authentication-with-sorcery

belongs_to :account

This line is saying that the TestUser object has a belongs_to relationship with Account model. With this relationship in place, you can find a test_user's account with the test_user.account method. This is assuming test_user is an instance of TestUser model. ie test_user = TestUser.new . Read more about belongs_to association at http://guides.rubyonrails.org/association_basics.html#the-belongs-to-association

accepts_nested_attributes_for :garden

This line says that you can save attributes on Garden object when you are saving a TestUser object. Read more about accepts_nested_attributes_for at http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/NestedAttributes/ClassMethods.html

Finally a piece of advice to help you understand everything better in rails world: Go through a thorough rails tutorial to get a good understanding of rails concepts. The freely available Rails Tutorial book at https://www.railstutorial.org/book is highly recommended.