Rails - Mar 2006 - STI and ActiveRecord attributes unprotected

Hi,

This does not seem to be covered anywhere. Since base class extends 
ActiveRecord with a table that has fields for all heirs, would that mean 
that any heir class can access any of those attributes, including ones 
that belong to other heirs?

Or I am missing something?



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> This does not seem to be covered anywhere. Since base class extends
> ActiveRecord with a table that has fields for all heirs, would that mean
> that any heir class can access any of those attributes, including ones
> that belong to other heirs?
>
> Or I am missing something?
You''re correct. All classes in an STI setup has access to all
attributes. Usually the answer is: It Just Doesn''t Matter. But if it
does to you, you can always use attr_protected or overwrite the other
attributes with accessors that throws an exception. Whatever floats
your boat ;)
--
David Heinemeier Hansson
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David, I have a lot trust in your decisions and opinions, but what about 
things that iterate over attribute collections like scaffolds for 
example? Neither solution will work correctly with them. I am not saying 
this is the end of the world. Just an observation.
> Usually the answer is: It Just Doesn''t Matter. But if it
> does to you, you can always use attr_protected or overwrite the other
> attributes with accessors that throws an exception. Whatever floats
> your boat ;)
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

On 3/22/06, Sergei Serdyuk <sserdyuk@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> David, I have a lot trust in your decisions and opinions, but what about
> things that iterate over attribute collections like scaffolds for
> example? Neither solution will work correctly with them. I am not saying
> this is the end of the world. Just an observation.
>
> > Usually the answer is: It Just Doesn''t Matter. But if it
> > does to you, you can always use attr_protected or overwrite the other
> > attributes with accessors that throws an exception. Whatever floats
> > your boat ;)
>
If you can think of a way for ActiveRecord to know which attributes
belong to which subclass without having to specify them "by hand" in
the model file, I''d be happy to work on a patch.
I haven''t been able to come up with anything solid myself; this is
just a side-effect of the column auto-discovery technique AR uses, in
my opinion.