How to have same enum values for multiple columns in rails

Sometimes we may need to share same enum values in multiple columns in rails. For eg: I may have a model named file that can either be of type transfer or new, and can be in transfer, review or approved state. I now have both state and type as enum and my modal looks like this:

class File < ActiveRecord::Base
  enum :state [ :transfer, :review, :approved]
  enum :type [ :transfer, :new]
end

ActiveRecord provides us some helper methods like bang and predicate methods for enums and in this case File.last.transfer! would probably not work as we have two transfer to resolve to, hence this won’t work. As mentioned in official doc we can make it work using prefix or suffix with enum. Above code can be fixed as:

Using suffix

We can either pass boolean or some value so that helper methods are still valid.

class File < ActiveRecord::Base
  enum :state [ :transfer, :review, :approved], _suffix: :step  #providing some value for suffix
  enum :type [ :transfer, :new], _suffix: true, _suffix: true #providing boolean value
end

Now our helper methods would look like:

file.transfer_step?, file.transfer_step!
file.transfer_type?, file.transfer_type!

Define prefix

class File < ActiveRecord::Base
  enum :state [ :transfer, :review, :approved], _prefix: :step  #providing some value for suffix
  enum :type [ :transfer, :new], _suffix: true, _prefix: true #providing boolean value
end

How this works is similar to above except defined words will come at first in helper methods.

Now our helper methods would look like:

file.step_transfer?, file.step_transfer!
file.type_transfer?, file.type_transfer!

References:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30981350/same-enum-values-for-multiple-columns/38441150#38441150 http://edgeapi.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Enum.html