counter_cache with has_many :through

I just created a counter_cache field and the controller looks like this.

 @users = User.where(:sex => 2).order('received_likes_count')

The association in User.rb is

 has_many :received_likes, :through => :attachments, :source => :likes, :dependent => :destroy

Problem is that counter_cache is declared in the belong_to of Like.rb and I don't know how to tell it that is for the has_many :through association.

  belongs_to :user, :counter_cache => :received_likes

Solution 1:

You have previous

    class Product
      has_and_belongs_to_many :categories
    end

    class Category
      has_and_belongs_to_many :products
    end

and migration

    class CreateCategoriesProducts < ActiveRecord::Migration
      def change
        create_table :categories_products, id: false do |t|
          t.references :category
          t.references :product
        end

        add_index :categories_products, [:category_id, :product_id]
      end
    end

now change all to

    class Product
      has_many :categories_products, dependent: :destroy
      has_many :categories, through: :categories_products
    end

    class Category
      has_many :categories_products, dependent: :destroy
      has_many :products, through: :categories_products
    end

and new one

    class CategoriesProduct < ActiveRecord::Base
      # this model uses table "categories_products" as it is
      # column products_count is in the table "categories"
      belongs_to :category, counter_cache: :products_count
      belongs_to :product
    end

Solution 2:

According to this post (from last month) and this post (from 2008), it doesn't seem to be possible. However, the latter post does have code for a workaround (copy/paste'd from that link for your convenience, credit goes to DEfusion in the second link)

class C < ActiveRecord::Base
    belongs_to :B

    after_create :increment_A_counter_cache
    after_destroy :decrement_A_counter_cache

    private

    def increment_A_counter_cache
        A.increment_counter( 'c_count', self.B.A.id )
    end

    def decrement_A_counter_cache
        A.decrement_counter( 'c_count', self.B.A.id )
    end
end

(This is for a scheme where C belongs_to B, B belongs_to A, A has_many C :through => B

Solution 3:

This basically does the same thing:

after_save :cache_post_count_on_tags

def cache_post_count_on_tags
  tags.each {|t| tag.update_attribute(:posts_count, t.posts.size)}
end

And you need a posts_count column on tags, or whatever associations you have.