trying to add model inheritance without changing database calls

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hello Folks!

Im trying to have several model classes inherit from a new class, which in turn inherits from ActiveRecord::Base. The problem is that my controller's database calls to the original model classes now look for the information in the new class's database table, even though it doesnt exist there.

e.g. class RawDatum inherits from class ArchModel RawDataController calls RawDatum.all generates SQL: "SELECT "arch_models".* FROM "arch_models" ORDER BY raw_data.timestamp DESC" correct SQL: "SELECT "raw_data".* FROM "raw_data" ORDER BY raw_data.timestamp DESC"

The new class is for providing methods that process data from other models, and to make the corresponding method calls short and simple. It doesn't need its own database table at all. The desired functionality already worked before, but the implementation was badly structured.

Does anyone have an idea on how to make this work?

2

You might try to set `self.table_name = 'raw_data'` in the RawDatum class though I'm not sure what it's side-effects would be (if any).

Would the following design work for you?

model ArchModel   # Include common functionality here. end

class RawDatum < ActiveRecord::Base   include ArchModel end