Named scopes with inheritance in Rails 3 mapping to wrong table

Question

I am attempting to use inheritance from a class which has a named scope:

Class A < ActiveRecord::Base
    scope :useful_scope, lambda { |value1, value2|
        where(:value1 => value1, :value2 => value2)
    end
end

Class B < A
    set_table_name "b"
end

The problem I'm encountering is that the table name in the sql queries still reference Class A's Table:

A.useful_scope("alpha", "beta").to_sql
 => "SELECT \"a\".* FROM \"a\" WHERE \"a\".\"value1\" = 'alpha' AND \"a\".\"value2\" = 'beta'"
B.useful_scope("alpha", "beta").to_sql
 => "SELECT \"b\".* FROM \"b\" WHERE \"a\".\"value1\" = 'alpha' AND \"a\".\"value2\" = 'beta'"

Note that the table names in the WHERE statement still refer to A. I am modifying an existing gem with various dependencies on the Class A scope throughout, so I need to maintain it's current syntax. I want to maintain the table name specifiers in the WHERE clause SQL to ensure that the scope will behave well when nested with other named scope definitions.

I have tried the following:

Using a lambda parameter for the table name. This broke the syntax for other references to the scope which only provided the current 2 properties.
Using an abstract class to define the scope. The same binding of the table name occurred, but using the class name of the Abstract Class.
Using a scope defined in a module and including the module. The same binding of the table name occurred.

Is there a way that I can force the scope to be evaluated on each inherited class, so that it isn't explicitly mapped to the parent classes table?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 29 '11 at 17:37

3

I ended up using an anonymous scope to resolve this issue. The code looks like this:

def self.useful_scope(value1, value2)
  scoped(:conditions => { :value1 => value1, :value2 => value2 })
end

This now evaluates properly in both the parent and inherited classes, and retains the desired behavior of a scope.

answered Mar 29 '11 at 17:37

Ben Zittlau

2,345
1
21
30

Where did you put this method, in a lib file? – Joshua Pinter Dec 22 '14 at 12:34

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 27 '11 at 23:45

2

Try this:

class A < ActiveRecord::Base
  def self.useful_scope(value1, value2)
    where(:value1 => value1, :value2 => value2)
  end
end

The difference here is that no Proc/lambda is defined so the :valueN keys don't get associated to the A table.

answered Mar 27 '11 at 23:45

20man

1,419
13
11

Thanks for the answer, but my concern with this implementation is I don't believe it will have the chaining properties that make scopes so useful. I ended up using a solution using an anonymous scope. – Ben Zittlau Mar 29 '11 at 17:34
3

Your concern is unfounded... the class method returns an ActiveRecord::Relation, same as any scope. – 20man Mar 30 '11 at 04:41

Named scopes with inheritance in Rails 3 mapping to wrong table

2 Answers2

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