Access another models value within a view, simple but complex?

I have a simple problem, but finding the solution is NOT that simple.

I have two models, Person, Skill

Person has many skills

Skills belong to person

In the database, Person table has a skill_id which takes the id from the Skills table as foreign key.

In the view I am trying to list the skills for that Person by name, I can get them by id, but how can I retrieve the name field from the Skills table.

Person.html(view)

<p>Current skills for: <b><%= "#{ @person.name }" -%></b></p>   

<% @people.each do |p| %>  
    <p>Age: <%= "#{p.age}开发者_如何学C" %></p>  
    <p><%= "#{p.start_date}" %></p>  
    <p><%= "#{p.skill_id}" %></p>    
<% end %> 

You say you've got has_many :skills. but then you go on to say that you've got a skill_id on a the persons table, which is incongruent. Which is it that you want?

Do you want a person to have a single specific skill in which case then what you've got now database-wise is fine, but model wise is not. The Person model in this case would have to have belongs_to :skill and the Skill model would have to have has_many :people

The other possible way around I can think that you'd want it is that a person has_and_belongs_to_many :skills and a skill has_and_belongs_to_many :people. This will allow many people to have many skills, which is what I truly think you want. Then in the view, you can do this:

<% people.each do |p| %>
  <h2><%= p.name %>'s skills</h2>
  <% p.skills.each do |skill| %>
    <%= skill.name %>
  <% end %>
<% end %>

So which is it? Your question says one thing and then the polar opposite which is greatly confusing. I hope this answer will help you make the right choice.

<% @people.each do |p| %>
  <% p.skills.each do |s| %>
    <%= s.name %>
  <% end %>
<% end %>

You current model design does not support requirement, i.e.

Skill belongs to multiple Person

Person has many skills

This is good case for many-to-many association. You have introduce a bridge table to hold the association.

class Person
  has_many :person_skills
  has_many :skills, :through => :person_skills
end

class Skill
  has_many :person_skills
  has_many :person, :through => :person_skills
end

# person_skills table with person_id and skill_id columns
class PersonSkill
  belongs_to :person
  belongs_to :skill
end

To get the skills of a person by name:

@person.skills.find_all_by_name("foo")
@person.skills.all(:conditions => ["name LIKE ?", "foo%"])