Categorization of models in Rails 4

Question

The goal is to have a list of non-unique categories for the models to be sorted under. However, a model could be placed in multiple categories.

Aside from using an array attribute and searching through each array of each model (thus eliminating scalability), how would one categorize models? I am unable to find a proper association form as well, for that would clutter the database with many instances of the "same" category.

Answer 1

If you're using a newish version of postgresql and rails 4, you can build light-weight tagging very easily using postgres' array column types. Array columns can be indexed and there's a set of decent operations on tables containing arrays. Arrays are performant and it's pretty fun to build this functionality from scratch, especially if your requirements are pretty simply.

There's a couple "ifs" in there which might mean this isn't the approach for you. If you're curious, this blog describes the process pretty clearly: http://rny.io/rails/postgresql/2013/07/28/tagging-in-rails-4-using-postgresql-arrays.html.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Would something like acts_as_taggable_on work? Or do you need something more elaborate? Could you give an example of what you'd like the code to look like?