How to properly organize has_many: through links in RoR?

Question

Ruby on Rails

There are companies that can exchange messages, but only after confirming that they wish to exchange messages with other companies.
To do this, I created the Invintation model

class Invintation < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :company
  belongs_to :recipient, class_name: 'Company', foreign_key: 'recipient_id', primary_key: 'recipient_id'
  belongs_to :author, class_name: 'User', foreign_key: 'author_id'
end

In the Company model I prescribe recipients

class Company < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :users_companies
  has_many :users, through: :users_companies
  has_many :messages
  has_many :invintations, class_name: 'Invintation', foreign_key: 'recipient_id'
  has_many :recipients, through: :invintations, class_name: 'Company'
end

but at the request of @company.recipients nothing comes out, I can’t figure out how to bind the same model through througth, please tell me.

Answer 1

The company can be the sender of the invitation, or it can be the recipient. The invitation stores information about the sender and the recipient (recipient_id and sender_id). A company may have multiple invitations sent and may have multiple invitations from other companies.
Invitation
belongs_to :recipient, class_name: 'Company', foreign_key: 'recipient_id'
belongs_to :sender, class_name: 'Company', foreign_key: 'sender_id'
Company
has_many :sent_invitations, class_name: 'Invitation', foreign_key: 'sender_id' - sent by company has_many : invitation_recipients
, through: :sent_invitations, source: :recipient - invitation recipients
has_many :incoming_invitations, class_name: 'Invitation', foreign_key: 'recipient_id' - invitations received by the company
has_many :invitation_senders, through: :incoming_invitations, source: :sender - invitation senders