How do I count the number of records that have one or more associated object?

Question

I have a Property model that has_many :photos. I want to count the number of properties that have one or more photo.

How do I do that?

I have tried the simple:

> Property.where('properties.photos.count > ?', 0).count

   (3.1ms)  SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "properties" WHERE (properties.photos.count > 1)
ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid: PG::UndefinedTable: ERROR:  missing FROM-clause entry for table "photos"
LINE 1: SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "properties"  WHERE (properties.photos....
                                                  ^
: SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "properties"  WHERE (properties.photos.count > 0)
from /ruby-2.3.0@myproject/gems/activerecord-3.2.22.5/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:1163:in `async_exec'
Caused by PG::UndefinedTable: ERROR:  missing FROM-clause entry for table "photos"
LINE 1: SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "properties"  WHERE (properties.photos....

to:

> Property.joins(:photos).where('photos.count > ?', 0).count

   (3.7ms)  SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "properties" INNER JOIN "photos" ON "photos"."property_id" = "properties"."id" WHERE (photos.count > 0)
ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid: PG::GroupingError: ERROR:  aggregate functions are not allowed in WHERE
LINE 1: ..."photos"."property_id" = "properties"."id" WHERE (photos.cou...
                                                             ^
: SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "properties" INNER JOIN "photos" ON "photos"."property_id" = "properties"."id" WHERE (photos.count > 0)
from ruby-2.3.0@myproject/gems/activerecord-3.2.22.5/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:1163:in `async_exec'
Caused by PG::GroupingError: ERROR:  aggregate functions are not allowed in WHERE
LINE 1: ..."photos"."property_id" = "properties"."id" WHERE (photos.cou...

to the more advanced:

>Property.includes(:photos).group(['property.id', 'photos.id']).order('COUNT(photos.id) DESC').count

(0.6ms)  SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT "properties"."id") AS count_id, property.id AS property_id, photos.id AS photos_id FROM "properties" LEFT OUTER JOIN "photos" ON "photos"."property_id" = "properties"."id" GROUP BY property.id, photos.id ORDER BY COUNT(photos.id) DESC
ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid: PG::UndefinedTable: ERROR:  missing FROM-clause entry for table "property"
LINE 1: ...CT COUNT(DISTINCT "properties"."id") AS count_id, property.i...
                                                             ^
: SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT "properties"."id") AS count_id, property.id AS property_id, photos.id AS photos_id FROM "properties" LEFT OUTER JOIN "photos" ON "photos"."property_id" = "properties"."id" GROUP BY property.id, photos.id ORDER BY COUNT(photos.id) DESC
from ruby-2.3.0@myproject/gems/activerecord-3.2.22.5/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:1163:in `async_exec'
Caused by PG::UndefinedTable: ERROR:  missing FROM-clause entry for table "property"
LINE 1: ...CT COUNT(DISTINCT "properties"."id") AS count_id, property.i...

and a few other variations, and they all produce similar errors.

What am I doing wrong?

Note: All I want is the count of properties that have photos.count > 0. I don't want a hash of all the properties and the count of photos. In other words, if there are 5000 properties in my db, I want to build a scope that returns just the properties that actually have photos.

Answer 1

Since all you want is the Propertys with Photos then an INNER JOIN is all you need.

Property.joins(:photos) 

That is it. If you want a scope then

class Property < ActiveRecord::Base
  scope :with_photos, -> {joins(:photos)} 
end 

To get the count using rails 3.2

Property.with_photos.count(distinct: true)  

You could also use: in rails 3.2

Property.count(joins: :photos, distinct: true) 

ActiveRecord::Calculations#count Doc

This will execute

SELECT 
  COUNT(DISTINCT properties.id) 
FROM 
  properties
  INNER JOIN photos ON photos.property_id = properties.id