skylerrogers/store_base_sti_class

Modifies ActiveRecord 3.0.5+ with the ability to store the actual class (instead of the base class) in polymorphic _type columns when using STI

Description¶ ↑

Given the following class definitions,

class Address
  belongs_to :addressable, :polymorphic => true
end

class Person
  has_many :addresses, :as => addressable
end

class Vendor < Person
end

and given the following code,

vendor = Vendor.create(...)
address = vendor.addresses.create(...)

p vendor
p address

will output,

#<Vendor id: 1, type: "Vendor" ...>
#<Address id: 1, addressable_id: 1, addressable_type: 'Person' ...>

Notice that addressable_type column is Person even though the actual class is Vendor.

Normally, this isn’t a problem, however it can have negative performance characteristic in certain circumstances. The most obvious one is that a join with persons or an extra query is required to find out the actual type of addressable.

This gem add ActiveRecord::Base.store_base_sti_class configuration option. It defaults to true for backwards compatibility. Setting it false will alter ActiveRecord’s behavior to store the actual class in polymorphic _type columns when STI is used.

In the example above, if the ActiveRecord::Base.store_base_sti_class is false, the output will be,

#<Vendor id: 1, type: "Vendor" ...>
#<Address id: 1, addressable_id: 1, addressable_type: 'Vendor' ...>

Usage¶ ↑

Add the following line to your Gemfile,

gem 'store_base_sti_class'

then bundle install. Once you have the gem installed, add the following to one of the initializers (or make a new one) in config/initializers,

ActiveRecord::Base.store_base_sti_class = false

When changing this behavior you will have write a migration to update all of your existing _type columns accordingly. You may also need to change your application if it explicitly relies on the _type columns.

Notes¶ ↑

This gem incorporates work from:

• github.com/pkmiec/store_base_sti_class_for_3_0

• github.com/appfolio/store_base_sti_class_for_3_1

• github.com/Lovethis/store_base_sti_class_for_3_1

• github.com/codepodu/store_base_sti_class_for_4_0

It currently works with ActiveRecord 3.0.5 through 4.0.1.

Copyright¶ ↑

Copyright © 2011 AppFolio, inc. See LICENSE.txt for further details.