Rails multiple foreign keys in the same table

Question

I have a model, called Procedure which has to be owned by a user and assigned to another user. I have a single table User, with roles to distinguish users.

So a procedure has 2 references to the table User.

I found and implemented this solution here so in my Procedure model I have

belongs_to :owner, class_name: "User", foreign_key: "owner_id"
belongs_to :assignee, class_name: "User", foreign_key: "assignee_id"

and in model User I have this

has_many :owned_procedures, class_name: "Procedure", foreign_key: "owner_id"
has_many :assigned_procedures, class_name: "Procedure", foreign_key: "assignee_id"

but I cannot understand how this physically should be implemented, I mean at table level: does table procedures need to have both the fields owner_id and assignee_id , or just a field user_id ?

Answer 1

Does table procedures need to have both the fields owner_id and assignee_id, or just a field user_id

You should have both owner_id and assignee_id in procedures table instead of user_id so that you can call

@user.owned_procedures
@user.assigned_procedures

to get owned_procedures and assigned_procedures of a @user which is an instance of User . And to get a owner and assignee of a procedure, call

@procedure.owner
@procedure.assignee