From the RoR docs at
:joins - Either an SQL fragment for additional joins like "LEFT JOIN comments ON comments.post_id = id" (rarely needed), named associations in the same form used for the :include option, which will perform anINNER JOIN on the associated table(s), or an array containing a mixture of both strings and named associations.
When using the "array containing a mixture of both strings and named associations", for example
:joins => ['LEFT JOIN foos ON foo_id = foos.id', :bar]
the following error is raised:
Association named 'LEFT JOIN foos ON foo_id = foos.id' was not found; perhaps you misspelled it?
The following patch allows arrays containing a mix of strings and symbols. Please include this in ActiveRecord 2.3.6.
Index: base.rb
