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Module: ActiveRecord::Reflection::ClassMethods

Relationships & Source Files
Defined in: activerecord/lib/active_record/reflection.rb

Overview

Reflection enables the ability to examine the associations and aggregations of Active Record classes and objects. This information, for example, can be used in a form builder that takes an Active Record object and creates input fields for all of the attributes depending on their type and displays the associations to other objects.

MacroReflection class has info for AggregateReflection and AssociationReflection classes.

Instance Method Summary

Instance Method Details

#reflect_on_aggregation(aggregation)

Returns the AggregateReflection object for the named aggregation (use the symbol).

Account.reflect_on_aggregation(:balance) # => the balance AggregateReflection
[ GitHub ]

  
# File 'activerecord/lib/active_record/reflection.rb', line 69

def reflect_on_aggregation(aggregation)
  aggregate_reflections[aggregation.to_s]
end

#reflect_on_all_aggregations

Returns an array of AggregateReflection objects for all the aggregations in the class.

[ GitHub ]

  
# File 'activerecord/lib/active_record/reflection.rb', line 61

def reflect_on_all_aggregations
  aggregate_reflections.values
end

#reflect_on_all_associations(macro = nil)

Returns an array of AssociationReflection objects for all the associations in the class. If you only want to reflect on a certain association type, pass in the symbol (:has_many, :has_one, :belongs_to) as the first parameter.

Example:

Account.reflect_on_all_associations             # returns an array of all associations
Account.reflect_on_all_associations(:has_many)  # returns an array of all has_many associations
[ GitHub ]

  
# File 'activerecord/lib/active_record/reflection.rb', line 106

def reflect_on_all_associations(macro = nil)
  association_reflections = reflections.values
  association_reflections.select! { |reflection| reflection.macro == macro } if macro
  association_reflections
end

#reflect_on_all_autosave_associations

Returns an array of AssociationReflection objects for all associations which have :autosave enabled.

[ GitHub ]

  
# File 'activerecord/lib/active_record/reflection.rb', line 126

def reflect_on_all_autosave_associations
  reflections.values.select { |reflection| reflection.options[:autosave] }
end

#reflect_on_association(association)

Returns the AssociationReflection object for the association (use the symbol).

Account.reflect_on_association(:owner)             # returns the owner AssociationReflection
Invoice.reflect_on_association(:line_items).macro  # returns :has_many
[ GitHub ]

  
# File 'activerecord/lib/active_record/reflection.rb', line 117

def reflect_on_association(association)
  reflections[association.to_s]
end

#reflections

Returns a ::Hash of name of the reflection as the key and an AssociationReflection as the value.

Account.reflections # => {"balance" => AggregateReflection}
[ GitHub ]

  
# File 'activerecord/lib/active_record/reflection.rb', line 77

def reflections
  @__reflections ||= begin
    ref = {}

    _reflections.each do |name, reflection|
      parent_reflection = reflection.parent_reflection

      if parent_reflection
        parent_name = parent_reflection.name
        ref[parent_name.to_s] = parent_reflection
      else
        ref[name] = reflection
      end
    end

    ref
  end
end