# Work out what are the included associations? **URL:** \ **Category:** rubyonrails-talk\ **Created:** [May 2, 2008, 11:30pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/work-out-what-are-the-included-associations/28882 "2008-05-02T23:30:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![11175](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/8edcca/32.png) [@11175](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/11175)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2008, 11:30pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/work-out-what-are-the-included-associations/28882/1 "2008-05-02T23:30:47Z")
I have a person model: Person   has\_many :phone\_numbers   has\_one :address   has\_many :email\_addresses When I do the query: people = Person.find(52, :include =\> [:address], :limit =\> 10) How can I work out which associations we're included. i.e. in this case: which\_relationships\_were\_included(people) #=\> ['address'] The reason I want to do this is so that I can automatically marshall data in a specific format into javascript. ---
**Author:** ![11175](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/8edcca/32.png) [@11175](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/11175)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/work-out-what-are-the-included-associations/28882/2 "2008-05-03T00:08:52Z")
Alex Moore wrote: > I have a person model: > > Person   has\_many :phone\_numbers   has\_one :address   has\_many :email\_addresses > > When I do the query: people = Person.find(52, :include =\> [:address], :limit =\> 10) > > How can I work out which associations we're included. > > i.e. in this case: which\_relationships\_were\_included(people) #=\> ['address'] > > The reason I want to do this is so that I can automatically marshall data in a specific format into javascript. I think the best way is to look at what happens when you load an association. person = Person.find(:first) person.instance\_variables == ["@attributes"] person.address person.instance\_variables == ["@address", "@attributes"] person = Person.find(:first, :include =\> :address) person.instance\_variables == ["@address", "@attributes"] I know that worked with Rails 1.1.6 let me know if it doesnt in Rails 2 ---
**Author:** ![11175](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/8edcca/32.png) [@11175](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/11175)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2008, 12:14am UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/work-out-what-are-the-included-associations/28882/3 "2008-05-03T00:14:55Z")
Matthew Rudy Jacobs wrote: > I think the best way is to look at what happens when you load an association. > > person = Person.find(:first) person.instance\_variables == ["@attributes"] person.address person.instance\_variables == ["@address", "@attributes"] > > person = Person.find(:first, :include =\> :address) person.instance\_variables == ["@address", "@attributes"] > > I know that worked with Rails 1.1.6 let me know if it doesnt in Rails Matthew: Works perfectly in rails 2.0, thankyou for the solution! ---
**Author:** ![11175](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/8edcca/32.png) [@11175](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/11175)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2008, 3:22am UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/work-out-what-are-the-included-associations/28882/4 "2008-05-03T03:22:40Z")
I spoke to soon ... So I can get a list of all the defined associations using: assoc = model\_instance.class.reflections.values.map {|r| '@' + r.name.to\_s} & model\_instance.instance\_variables assoc.map {|a| a[1..-1]}.map {|a| model\_instance.class.reflections[a.to\_sym].class\_name} But the issue is when i have people = Person.find(:all, :include =\> [:address,:suburb], :limit =\> 10) give\_me\_a\_list\_of\_all\_the\_included\_attributes\_including\_those\_in\_relationships(people) I can't simply inspect people[0] and look at those relationships, because if people[0] doesn't have an address defined and people[1] does the left join means that I won't see the suburb defined. I thought an easy solution would be to hack up ActiveRecord::Base.find so that if an :include is passed, it stores that in each and every instance of the model. That way I can just inspect the hash and easily work out what was included. The only other option I can think, is having my method give\_me\_a\_list\_of\_all\_the\_included\_attributes\_including\_those\_in\_relationships take another parameter which specifies the includes which in the long run is not as easy for the end user. ---
**Author:** ![colin1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@colin1](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/colin1)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2008, 5:58pm UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/work-out-what-are-the-included-associations/28882/5 "2008-05-03T17:58:48Z")
i think you can do person.address.loaded? ---
**Author:** ![11175](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/8edcca/32.png) [@11175](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/11175)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2008, 1:41am UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/work-out-what-are-the-included-associations/28882/6 "2008-05-05T01:41:54Z")
colin wrote: > i think you can do person.address.loaded? > > On May 2, 5:08�pm, Matthew Rudy Jacobs \ **Author:** ![11175](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/8edcca/32.png) [@11175](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/u/11175)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2008, 8:27am UTC](https://discuss.rubyonrails.org/t/work-out-what-are-the-included-associations/28882/7 "2008-05-05T08:27:45Z") Matthew Rudy Jacobs wrote: > colin wrote: > > > i think you can do person.address.loaded? > > > > On May 2, 5:08�pm, Matthew Rudy Jacobs \ > good spot Colin! Cheers Guys!