Is it legal to override AR:Base#== and #eql?

rubyonrails-core
1

I have several cases of models where object identity is not important, but only the (guaranteed) unique combination of attribute values. In these cases it is convenient to override #== in a way that two objects with the same attribute values but different IDs are still considered equal. This is very handy when assigning to has_many associations because then existing associated objects are not touched (deleted in particular) and foreign key constraints of other references to these objects are not violated.

My only concern is that something inside AR might depend on #== being tied to database object identity.

Michael

2

My only concern is that something inside AR might depend on #== being tied to database object identity.

There's nothing that I'm aware of. However I'd definitely say this is 'unsupported hackery', so if something does break you'll kinda be on your own. Do let us know though :wink:

3

That's about what I thought :expressionless: I think it should be stated in the docs one way or another, however, I don't yet know which way it is.

Michael