Module: ActiveRecord::ModelSchema::ClassMethods

Sets the columns names the model should ignore. Ignored columns won’t have attribute accessors defined, and won’t be referenced in SQL queries.

A common usage pattern for this method is to ensure all references to an attribute have been removed and deployed, before a migration to drop the column from the database has been deployed and run. Using this two step approach to dropping columns ensures there is no code that raises errors due to having a cached schema in memory at the time the schema migration is run.

For example, given a model where you want to drop the “category” attribute, first mark it as ignored:

class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
  # schema:
  #   id         :bigint
  #   name       :string, limit: 255
  #   category   :string, limit: 255

  self.ignored_columns = [:category]
end

The schema still contains “category”, but now the model omits it, so any meta-driven code or schema caching will not attempt to use the column:

Project.columns_hash["category"] => nil

You will get an error if accessing that attribute directly, so ensure all usages of the column are removed (automated tests can help you find any usages).

user = Project.create!(name: "First Project")
user.category # => raises NoMethodError

Defines the name of the table column which will store the class name on single-table inheritance situations.

The default inheritance column name is type, which means it’s a reserved word inside Active Record. To be able to use single-table inheritance with another column name, or to use the column type in your own model for something else, you can set inheritance_column:

self.inheritance_column = 'zoink'

Sets the value of inheritance_column

Determines if the primary key values should be selected from their corresponding sequence before the insert statement.

The array of names of environments where destructive actions should be prohibited. By default, the value is ["production"].

Sets an array of names of environments where destructive actions should be prohibited.

Sets the name of the sequence to use when generating ids to the given value, or (if the value is nil or false) to the value returned by the given block. This is required for Oracle and is useful for any database which relies on sequences for primary key generation.

If a sequence name is not explicitly set when using Oracle, it will default to the commonly used pattern of: ##table_name_seq

If a sequence name is not explicitly set when using PostgreSQL, it will discover the sequence corresponding to your primary key for you.

class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
  self.sequence_name = "projectseq"   # default would have been "project_seq"
end

Indicates whether the table associated with this class exists

Guesses the table name (in forced lower-case) based on the name of the class in the inheritance hierarchy descending directly from ::ActiveRecord::Base. So if the hierarchy looks like: Reply < Message < ::ActiveRecord::Base, then Message is used to guess the table name even when called on Reply. The rules used to do the guess are handled by the Inflector class in Active Support, which knows almost all common English inflections. You can add new inflections in config/initializers/inflections.rb.

Nested classes are given table names prefixed by the singular form of the parent’s table name. Enclosing modules are not considered.

Examples

class Invoice < ActiveRecord::Base
end

file                  class               table_name
invoice.rb            Invoice             invoices

class Invoice < ActiveRecord::Base
  class Lineitem < ActiveRecord::Base
  end
end

file                  class               table_name
invoice.rb            Invoice::Lineitem   invoice_lineitems

module Invoice
  class Lineitem < ActiveRecord::Base
  end
end

file                  class               table_name
invoice/lineitem.rb   Invoice::Lineitem   lineitems

Additionally, the class-level ActiveRecord::ModelSchema.table_name_prefix is prepended and the ActiveRecord::ModelSchema.table_name_suffix is appended. So if you have “myapp_” as a prefix, the table name guess for an Invoice class becomes “myapp_invoices”. Invoice::Lineitem becomes “myapp_invoice_lineitems”.

You can also set your own table name explicitly:

class Mouse < ActiveRecord::Base
  self.table_name = "mice"
end

Sets the table name explicitly. Example:

class Project < ActiveRecord::Base
  self.table_name = "project"
end

Returns the column object for the named attribute. Returns an ::ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::NullColumn if the named attribute does not exist.

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
end

person = Person.new
person.column_for_attribute(:name) # the result depends on the ConnectionAdapter
# => #<ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column:0x007ff4ab083980 @name="name", @sql_type="varchar(255)", @null=true, ...>

person.column_for_attribute(:nothing)
# => #<ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::NullColumn:0xXXX @name=nil, @sql_type=nil, @cast_type=#<Type::Value>, ...>

Returns an array of column names as strings.

Returns an array of column objects where the primary id, all columns ending in “_id” or “_count”, and columns used for single table inheritance have been removed.

Returns the next value that will be used as the primary key on an insert statement.

Returns a quoted version of the table name, used to construct SQL statements.

Resets all the cached information about columns, which will cause them to be reloaded on the next request.

The most common usage pattern for this method is probably in a migration, when just after creating a table you want to populate it with some default values, eg:

class CreateJobLevels < ActiveRecord::Migration[6.0]
  def up
    create_table :job_levels do |t|
      t.integer :id
      t.string :name

      t.timestamps
    end

    JobLevel.reset_column_information
    %w{assistant executive manager director}.each do |type|
      JobLevel.create(name: type)
    end
  end

  def down
    drop_table :job_levels
  end
end

Returns the type of the attribute with the given name, after applying all modifiers. This method is the only valid source of information for anything related to the types of a model’s attributes. This method will access the database and load the model’s schema if it is required.

The return value of this method will implement the interface described by ::ActiveModel::Type::Value (though the object itself may not subclass it).

attr_name The name of the attribute to retrieve the type for. Must be a string or a symbol.