Hi everyone. I have been in search of something that would allow me to selectively select columns to load into an entity retrieved by using .includes(.preload or .eager_load) like Project.includes(:active_user[:name, :age]) or Project.includes(:active_user).select(:id, active_user: {id: user_id, name: user_name}), similar to what this thread was asking for.
In an effort to try to solve this myself, I ran into the following problems:
- inability to find what the true aliases are when the same table is joined on multiple times in the same query
- inability to use .select with .includes
- inability to get back a nest structure like what you would normally get with ActiveRecord::Relation
For #1 and #2, fortunately, I found this gem, Brick, which makes .select work with .include as well as attempting to figure out what the aliases that are generated by AREL are. Although this partially solves the 1st and 2nd problem, its limitation of this solution is that it only work with joins, and the result is not nested.
For making this work with preload i have tried messing with preload_association, it only works to an extent.
Before going too deep into this only to realize that its a wasted effort, I would like to ask you if this is a reasonable effort and if im going down the right path?
Does anyone have insight into the viability of making this part ot default Rails? Im still in the process of solving this problem myself, but if it works, i would like to contribute to Rails. However, i might be missing something thats prevents anyone trying to implement this patch.
