`:inverse_of` ignored when inverse is a `has_many` association

rubyonrails-core
1

Per the [documentation][doc], setting the `:inverse_of` a `belongs_to` association to a `has_many` association is ignored. I'm wondering if there is a reason not to implement this, or if no one has gotten around to it yet. If the latter, I would like to take a stab at it :slight_smile:

Here's some example code:

# app/models/album.rb
class Album < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :name

  has_many :tracks, :inverse_of => :album

  validates :name, :presence => true
end

# app/models/track.rb
class Track < ActiveRecord::Base
  attr_accessible :name

  belongs_to :album, :inverse_of => :tracks

  validates :album, :name, :presence => true
end

# Example:
a1 = Album.new
t1 = a1.tracks.build
t1.album # => a1
a1.tracks # => [t1]

a2 = Album.new
t2 = Track.new
t2.album = a2
a2.tracks # => []

The naive expectation is `a2.tracks == [t2]`.

My question is why the `inverse_of` is ignored in this case: have I missed something? Is this particularly hard to implement? Is it not a desired feature? I do remember being confused about this (since `inverse_of` is silently ignored) until I found the right documentation.

I have heard it suggested that adding `t2` to `a2.tracks` would force fetching `a2.tracks`, causing a DB query. The implication is that `:inverse_of` is ignored for performance reasons. That doesn't sound right, since `a1.tracks.build` does not force such a query.

Thanks very much for reading; any thoughts are much appreciated :slight_smile:

[doc]: https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activerecord/lib/active_record/associations.rb#L933