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POHow to store countries as integers in a database in ruby on rails
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  1. POHow to store countries as integers in a database in ruby on rails
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    copied!<p><strong>What I'm trying to do:</strong></p> <p>I'm trying to find out if there is a quick way to get country_select to store integers representing the countries instead of storing the country names/strings themselves. I'm using the <a href="https://github.com/jamesds/country-select" rel="nofollow">country select gem</a>.</p> <p><strong>Possible solution:</strong></p> <p>One way I'm thinking this can be done is if I install the gem as a plugin and edit the countries array to have arrays within the main array with integers and a string e.g. COUNTRIES = [["United Kingdom", 1],["United States", 2]] </p> <p>This way in my form there will be values representing the strings. Then I can have a country_id column in my profiles table where users selected countries id will be stored. I will have a separate table "countries" that will have the countries stored in it and I'll use the country_id of the profiles table to reference the correct country in the countries table.</p> <p>Doing it this way would mean I would still get the good features of the gem/plugin such as having priority countries at the top of the select list. Something I don't know how to do on my own.</p> <p>It would take long but it could work. If I chose this solution where would I put the plugin? vendors folder in my apps directory right?</p> <p>But if there is a quicker way to do this I'd like to do it that way.</p> <p><strong>A bigger picture:</strong></p> <p>Ok I have a search form where a user can browse the sites users filtering out results by:</p> <p>text typed location gender sexuality marital status country</p> <p>I'm using thinking sphinx and when filtering attributes it seems that the attributes need to be represented integers because everything works but the country.</p> <p>I'm using the <a href="https://github.com/jamesds/country-select" rel="nofollow">country select gem</a> and it seems to only store strings and not an integer representing the string.</p> <p>I would like to have it store integers instead.</p> <p><strong>Here are some contants I use in my search forms:</strong></p> <pre><code>module ApplicationHelper GENDER = [["Select", nil],["Male", 1],["Female", 2]] ETHNICITY = [["Select", nil],['Black', 1 ],['White / Caucasian', 2 ],['European', 3 ],['Asian', 4 ], ['Indian', 5 ],['Middle Eastern', 6 ],['Native American', 7 ],['Hispanic', 8 ], ['Mixed Race', 9 ],['Other Ethnicity', 10 ]] MARITAL_STATUS = [[' Select', nil],['Single', 1 ],['Dating', 2 ],['In relationship', 3 ],['Married', 4 ], ['Living Together', 5 ],['Divorced', 6 ],['Separated', 7 ],['Widowed', 8 ]] SEXUAL_PREFERENCE = [[' Select', nil],['Straight', 1 ],['Gay', 2 ],['Bi-sexual', 3 ]] end </code></pre> <p><strong>The search/browse form:</strong></p> <pre><code>&lt;%= form_tag browsers_path, :method =&gt; 'get' do %&gt; &lt;p&gt; Location: &lt;%= text_field_tag :location, params[:location] %&gt; &lt;br /&gt; Country: &lt;%= country_select :country, [ "United Kingdom", "France", "Germany" ] %&gt; &lt;br /&gt; Gender: &lt;%= select_tag :gender, options_for_select(ApplicationHelper::GENDER, params[:gender]) %&gt; &lt;br /&gt; Ethnicity: &lt;%= select_tag :ethnicity, options_for_select(ApplicationHelper::ETHNICITY, params[:ethnicity]) %&gt; &lt;br /&gt; Marital status: &lt;%= select_tag :marital_status, options_for_select(ApplicationHelper::MARITAL_STATUS, params[:marital_status]) %&gt; &lt;br /&gt; Sexual preference: &lt;%= select_tag :sexual_preference, options_for_select(ApplicationHelper::SEXUAL_PREFERENCE, params[:sexual_preference]) %&gt; &lt;br /&gt; &lt;%= submit_tag "Search", :name =&gt; nil %&gt; &lt;/p&gt; &lt;% end %&gt; </code></pre> <p>as you can see each array has a string and an integer. If you check out the array from the country_select gem there are just strings.</p> <p>I'd appreciate an explanation of the best possible way to do what I'm trying to do and a clear example if possible.</p> <p>I hope this post made sense.</p> <p>Kind regards</p>
 

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