What is the purpose of :conditions on a belongs_to association?

rubyonrails-talk
1

Say I have the following association with an attached condition:

belongs_to :admin_user,
    :class_name => 'User',
    :foreign_key => :admin_user_id,
    :conditions=> 'users.admin=TRUE' # or any variation with hash or array, {:admin => true}, etc.

The API states that the :conditions option on belongs_to will:

Specify the conditions that the associated object must meet in order to be included as a WHERE SQL fragment, such as authorized = 1.

But the output shows no WHERE clause on the select, and in any case I would expect that conditions like this on a belongs_to would prevent persisting that relationship to begin with, on the INSERT not the SELECT. This option seems to have no effect on a belongs_to association, unless I’m missing something. The option makes sense on a has_many, I just don’t see how it applies to belongs_to.

I’ve posted this on stackoverflow as well, just fyi.

Thanks, Dave

2

Dave Sims wrote:

But the output shows no WHERE clause on the select, and in any case I would expect that conditions like this on a belongs_to would prevent persisting that relationship to begin with, on the INSERT not the SELECT. This option seems to have no effect on a belongs_to association, unless I'm missing something. The option makes sense on a has_many, I just don't see how it applies to belongs_to.

Take this contrived example:

Department   has_many :people end

Person   belongs_to :department, :conditions => { :name => "Development" } end

person # assume this exists person.department.name => "Development" department # assume this exists department.name => "Marketing" person.department = department person.save person.reload person.department => nil

SELECT * FROM "departments" WHERE ("departments"."id" = 1 AND ("departments"."name" = 'Development'))

3

Upon further inspection I do see that the condition will restrict the retrieval of items (and even then only after they are reloaded), but not the persistence. I can assign an invalid object (invalid according to the condition) and that reference is persisted to the database upon save. The invalid attribute will be available on that object in memory until the object is reloaded.

4

read the documentation on this. it explains it pretty thoroughly.

5

If you know of documentation in addition to the api docs linked from my original post which might be helpful, feel free to include a link.

6

Dave Sims wrote:

If you know of documentation in addition to the api docs linked from my original post which might be helpful, feel free to include a link.

As mentioned, the API doc actually does explain this relatively clearly in this statement:

:conditions   Specify the conditions that the associated object must meet in order to be included   as a WHERE SQL fragment, such as authorized = 1.

The :conditions option applies to the associated object as a WHERE SQL fragment. There is no mention of any validation, or referential integrity. Rather it is a "filter" on the association. It simply determines whether or not the referenced object is returned.

If you need validation of the association, then use validation. ActiveRecord provides reasonably extensive validation support. That, along with database referential integrity, is the right place for ensuring validity.