rails class sti reminders

To implement Single Table Inheritance (STI) in Ruby on Rails, you can follow these steps:

  1. Create a database table to store the common attributes of all the models that will be using STI. For example, if you have a "Reminder" model and you want to create different types of reminders like "EmailReminder" and "SMSReminder," you can create a "reminders" table with columns for the common attributes like "title" and "description."

  2. Define a base class for your STI models. In this case, you can create a "Reminder" class that inherits from ActiveRecord::Base. This base class will handle the database interactions for all the subclasses.

  3. Create subclasses for each specific type of reminder. For example, you can create an "EmailReminder" class and an "SMSReminder" class. These classes should inherit from the base class you defined in step 2.

  4. Use the "type" column in the "reminders" table to specify the type of each record. This column will be automatically set by Rails based on the subclass name. For example, if you create a new record using the "EmailReminder" class, Rails will set the "type" column to "EmailReminder."

  5. Define any additional attributes or methods specific to each subclass. For example, if the "EmailReminder" class needs an additional attribute like "email_address," you can add it as a column in the "reminders" table and define an accessor method in the subclass.

  6. You can now use the STI models just like any other Rails model. You can create, update, and delete records, as well as query the database using the common attributes or the additional attributes of each subclass.

STI in Rails allows you to create different types of objects that share common attributes and behaviors while still maintaining separate tables for each type. This approach can simplify your code and database structure, as well as provide a more flexible and scalable solution.