On 01/26, Linus Pettersson wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I have a model which has a field that can have three values only. I store
> the value in the database as an integer, 0, 1 or 2, but when I display it I
> want a more appropriate text. And, I want it to be translatable using i18n.
>
> Let's say that it corresponds to how difficult something is. So, 0
> represents "Easy", 1 represents "Normal" and 2 represents "Hard".
> What I did was first to define it as a hash like this:
> DIFFICULTIES = { "Easy" => 0, "Normal" => 1, "Hard" => 2 }
> Then I can easily pass this to, for instance, simple_form and it will
> generate a nice dropdown with the correct values.
>
> But let's say that I have the value and want to display the text. Then I'd
> have to iterate over the hash to find which key corresponds to the right
> value. Right? Not that big of an issue when there are three values as in
> this example, but there could be more.
I don't know of any best practice for this, but searching in a hash
takes, on average, O(1); so I don't think there's anything to worry
about here. Of course, if the hash gets big you might end up with
maintainability issues, but that's another story.
>
> How do you normally handle these cases? Is there any "best practice" to
> handle this in an efficient manner?
>
> Cheers,
> Linus
>