Rails core - Jan 2007 - mixing :include and :methods in options hash passed to #to_xml

I''m not sure if this would be considered a defect or not, so I wanted
to post here before adding a report to Trac. Perhaps someone here is
aware of something I''m not.

Let''s say I have the following model classes defined:

### BEGIN ###
class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :bars

  def some_method
    "I am some_method"
  end
end

class Bar < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :foo
end
### END ###

If I try to run "Foo.find( 1 ).to_xml( :include => [ :bars ], :methods
=> [ :some_method ] )" there is a problem, because the options hash
passed to Foo#to_xml is passed down to Bar#to_xml when it serializes
the associated objects. In general, that''s probably what you want --
the problem is that Bar#some_method is not defined, and so you get a
NoMethodError when the serialization tries to call #some_method on the
Bar instances.

I wonder if it would be a good idea to change the
ActiveRecord::XmlSerialization::XmlSerializer#serializable_method_attributes
method from

### BEGIN ###
def serializable_method_attributes
  Array(options[:methods]).collect { |name|
MethodAttribute.new(name.to_s, @record) }
end
### END ###

to something like

### BEGIN ###
def serializable_method_attributes
  valid_methods = Array(options[:methods]).reject { |name|
!@record.respond_to? name }
  valid_methods.collect { |name| MethodAttribute.new(name.to_s,
@record) }
end
### END ###

Obviously, the danger here is that you do /not/ get an exception if you
specify a method in the options that is not defined anywhere in the
object graph being serialized. Personally, I think that would be a good
trade-off. Otherwise I''ve found that I have to write a custom #to_xml
method in many of my model classes just to remove unknown methods form
the :methods option. Better to take care of that once at the root.

Thoughts?


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> I''m not sure if this would be considered a defect or not, so I
wanted
> to post here before adding a report to Trac. Perhaps someone here is
> aware of something I''m not.
>
> Let''s say I have the following model classes defined:
>
> ### BEGIN ###
> class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
>   has_many :bars
>
>   def some_method
>     "I am some_method"
>   end
> end
>
> class Bar < ActiveRecord::Base
>   belongs_to :foo
> end
> ### END ###
>
> If I try to run "Foo.find( 1 ).to_xml( :include => [ :bars ],
:methods
> => [ :some_method ] )" there is a problem, because the options hash
> passed to Foo#to_xml is passed down to Bar#to_xml when it serializes
> the associated objects. In general, that''s probably what you want
--
> the problem is that Bar#some_method is not defined, and so you get a
> NoMethodError when the serialization tries to call #some_method on the
> Bar instances.
This definitely is a bug,  please open a ticket and attach your proposed fix.

While .to_xml isn''t designed to be the be-all-and-end-all solution for
generating xml, this is well within reason.

-- 
Cheers

Koz

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On Jan 22, 12:59 am, "Michael Koziarski" <mich...@koziarski.com>
wrote:
> This definitely is a bug,  please open a ticket and attach your proposed
fix.
Done. http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/7307

-- 
Regards,
John Wilger


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