Rails Polymorphic Association with multiple models

Question

This is the case: I have 4 models which are "owner", "user", "location" and "landlord". All of these models share email addresses and phones. So I'm thinking to use Polymorphic Association and I made a research but I just see cases for 3 models. In my case as you can see I will have more than 3 models.

So, do you think is a good idea to implement this kind of logic where I want to use a model like the "repository" for all emails and phones numbers?

There is a limit or something in order to use that kind of association?. I'm thinking in some models like:

email
emailable
user
owner
landlord
location

Each model will have their necessary fields.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

There's no limit. A polymorphic association is an open interface that any other model can plug into. In your example, maybe you have a Contact model, which belongs_to :contactable, polymorphic: true . The contacts table will need two indexed columns: contactable_id:integer , and contactable_type:string . Any other model can be contactable , as long as it has_one :contact, as: :contactable .

As far as if it's a good idea, I'd say if you think you will need to work with contacts as a separate entity from the contactable models, then this is a good solution. However, if you won't need to deal directly with contacts then it might be overcomplicating when you could just add email and phone fields to these models.