Having trouble with has_many :through association

Question

I finally figured out a way to let a user save favorites through a joined model. Here's my user model:

has_many :pictures, :through => :favorites

If I want to get the pictures the user favorited, I can call

@pictures = user.pictures

Originally, this would show all the user's uploads and not favorites, but I still want to be able to show all their uploads. I would like to be able to call @user.pictures for all uploads and @user.favorite_pictures for their favorited. I tried this, but it didn't work:

has_many :pictures
has_many :favorites
has_many :pictures, :through => :favorites, :as => :favorite_pictures

### @user.favorite_pictures produces an error

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

The error lies in your 3rd line,

has_many :pictures, :through => :favorites, :as => :favorite_pictures

You already defined :pictures and the :as option is only used for polymorphic associations. Try this instead:

has_many :favorite_pictures, :through => :favorites, :source => :picture