As hinted by kwon in the comments on the original question, I would approach it through using the session only to retain the identity of the user. I would then pull the desired database connection from logic in a model and a central database (the default rails DB) persisting user details and user connection information.
Start with a modification to your user model (assuming that your user has a model that is persisted in a central database)
- add an attribute to the user representing the data to be used
- in your application controller set the user in a before_filter, based on the session key
- initialize your Stuff model with a user argument
You can then lookup your database connection based on the database.yml. Or if you have one database per user and you need this to be dynamic, create a second model (in the central database) representing the database connection with a foreign key onto the user model.
The following is a bunch of code that may or may not work in reality, but hopefully gives you a template for getting started.
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
before_filter :set_user
def set_user
begin
@user = UserProfile.find(session[:usernumber]) if session[:usernumber]
rescue
logger.warn "Possible error in set_user. Resetting session: #{$!}"
@user=nil
session[:usernumber]=nil
reset_session
end
end
end
class StuffController < ApplicationController
def show
@stuff = Stuff.user_get(@user, params[:id])
end
end
class Stuff < ActiveRecord::Base
# This would be better moved to a module to reuse across models
def self.establish_connection_user(user)
establish_connection(user.connection_hash)
end
def establish_connection_user(user)
establish_connection(user.connection_hash)
end
def self.user_get user, item_id
establish_connection_user(user)
find(id)
end
def self.user_where user, *query_args
establish_connection_user(user)
where(query_args)
end
# Even better than replicating 'where', create model methods
# that are more representative of your desired functionality
end
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_one :user_connection
def connection_hash
uc = self.user_connection
{:database=>uc.db, :password=>uc.pass, :user=>uc.username, :host=>uc.dbhost, :adapter=>uc.adapter}
end
# User probably contains other user-facing details
end
