Active Record Domain Modeling Project

In this assignment, you'll build out your own project, using Active Record to enact database relationships, from scratch.

Objectives

Try out setting up your own environment from scratch--using past labs as a guide.
Build out a complex set of associations, including the belongs to/has many, and many-to-many relationship.
Use the code you wrote! Build a simple command line interface class so that a user can interact with your database.

Guidelines

In this app, you'll be working with a library domain model. You will have the following models:

Category (think fiction, non-fiction, biography, science, etc.). A category has a:
- name
- has many books
Book. A book has a:
- title
- belongs to a category
- belongs to an author
Author. An author has a:
- name
- has many books
User. A user has a:
- name

The relationship between books and users in a little complex. A user can have many books and a book can belong to many users. At what point in time should a book be added to a user's collection of books? When a user checks that book out of the library. You will need a join table to implement this many-to-many relationship.

You also need to keep track of the books a user has previously checked out, vs. the books a user has currently checked out. So, each "checked out book" should know the its due date, should know whether or not it was returned and should therefore know if that book is overdue for that user.

Instructions

Environment Set Up

Start out by setting up your environment. Your file structure should look like this:

├── Gemfile
├── Rakefile
├── app
│   └── models
│       ├── category.rb
│       ├── author.rb
│       └── book.rb
        └── user.rb
        └── <your join table model--name it whatever makes sense to you>.rb
├── config
│   └── environment.rb
├── db
│   └── migrate
│       ├── 001_create_categories.rb
│       ...
├── lib
│   └── support
│       ├── connection_adapter.rb
│       └── db_registry.rb

Use this lab to guide you through your environment set up.

Make sure you have a Gemfile that includes the following gems:

source "https://rubygems.org"

gem "rspec"
gem "activerecord"
gem "sqlite3"
gem "rake"

A Rakefile that includes the following:

require 'active_record'

task :environment do
  ENV["ACTIVE_RECORD_ENV"] ||= "development"
  require_relative './config/environment'
end

include ActiveRecord::Tasks
DatabaseTasks.db_dir = 'db'
DatabaseTasks.migrations_paths = 'db/migrate'
seed_loader = Class.new do
  def load_seed
    load "#{ActiveRecord::Tasks::DatabaseTasks.db_dir}/seeds.rb"
  end
end
DatabaseTasks.seed_loader = seed_loader.new
load 'active_record/railties/databases.rake'

task :console => :environment do
  Pry.start
end

Look to the costume store lab for your to set up your config/environment.rb file and the files in your lib directory that handle establishing the connection to the database.

Database Design

Once your environment is set up, go ahead and design your database. What do you tables need to look like? What foriegn keys need to be included in which tables? Do you need a join table? What columns should it have?

Create and run your migrations.

Model Design

Once you have migrated your database, define you models. Remember to inherit them from ActiveRecord::Base. Use the appropriate macros to finish building your your associations.

Model Methods

Write a User instance method that allows a user to "check out" a book.

the_doctor = User.create(name: "The Doctor")
book = Book.create(title: "Tardis Manual")

the_doctor.check_out_book(book, due_date: "September 1st, 2016")

the_doctor.books
# => [#<Book:0x007f8973912 @title="Tardis Manual">]

book.users
# => [#<User:8x007f867390fe38 @name="The Doctor">]

When a user check's out a book, it should create a new UserBook record (or Checkout record or whatever you want to call you join table/model). That new UserBook record should have a attribute (and therefore table column) of returned? which should default to false

So, after running the code above, I should be able to run the following code and see the following return values:

UserBook.where(user: the_doctor, returned: false)
# => [#<User:0x007f867390fe38
        @user=#<User:0x007290867390fe38 @name="The Doctor">,
        @book=#<Book:7x007f8673999 @title="Tardis Manual">,
        @returned=false>
      ]

Write User instance method that allows a user to "return" a book.

the_doctor.return_book(book)
the_doctor.books
# => [#<Book:0x007f8973912 @title="Tardis Manual">]

UserBook.where(user: the_doctor, returned: false)
# => []

UserBook.where(user: the_doctor, returned: true)
# => [#<User:0x007f867390fe38
        @user=#<User:0x007290867390fe38 @name="The Doctor">,
        @book=#<Book:7x007f8673999 @title="Tardis Manual">,
        @returned=false>
      ]

Play around with your code

Run the console task, rake console, and play around with the code you wrote to make sure your associations are working properly. Make and save an instance of category, book, author and use. Add the book to your category's collection of books, add the book to the author's collection of books. Have the user "check out" the book. Have the user "return" the book.

Command Line Interface

If you have time, build out a very simple CLI that does the following:

Greet the user
Ask the user for their name so you can find that user in your database
Show the user a list of categories and ask them to choose a category whose books they want to see
Show the user all the books in the chosen category
Allow the user to choose a book to check out
Check out that book for them
Prompt and allow the user to return the book

*This functionality will require you to see you database with a few dummy categories, books and users. Put this code in your db/seeds.rb file and run rake db:seed.

szrharrison/active-record-project-eyes-on-the-prize