Rails - Apr 2009 - belongs_to not working as expected

I''m using ActiveRecord 2.3.2.  I have a class with a belongs_to
association like this:

  class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
    belongs_to :bar
  end

It is valid for bar to be nil (thus, in the database, foos.bar_id can
be null).  However, if I execute the following I get an error:

  foo = Foo.new
  foo.bar # => nil
  foo.save!
  foo.bar # expect nil but get error

The full error message is, "ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound (Couldn''t
find Bar without an ID)".  Tracing the code I see that
ActiveRecord::Base.find_from_ids(ids, options) is being called by
passing an array containing a single, nil, element for the ids
argument.  Here is the method:

  def find_from_ids(ids, options)
    expects_array = ids.first.kind_of?(Array)
    return ids.first if expects_array && ids.first.empty?

    ids = ids.flatten.compact.uniq

    case ids.size
      when 0
        raise RecordNotFound, "Couldn''t find #{name} without an
ID"
      when 1
        result = find_one(ids.first, options)
        expects_array ? [ result ] : result
      else
        find_some(ids, options)
    end
  end

Without delving further to assess other consequences, it seems to me
that either nil should be returned when ids.size == 0 or the line "ids
= ids.flatten.compact.uniq" should be replaced with:

  ids = ids.flatten.uniq
  return nil if ids.length == 1 && ids.first.nil?
  ids.compact!

Any thoughts gratefully received!

Thanks,

Chris.

uberlordchris wrote:
> I''m using ActiveRecord 2.3.2.  I have a class with a belongs_to
> association like this:
> 
>   class Foo < ActiveRecord::Base
>     belongs_to :bar
>   end
> 
> It is valid for bar to be nil (thus, in the database, foos.bar_id can
> be null).  However, if I execute the following I get an error:
> 
>   foo = Foo.new
>   foo.bar # => nil
>   foo.save!
>   foo.bar # expect nil but get error
I just tried this myself with Rails 2.3.2 and it worked as expected so 
I''m not sure what wrong.

What does your Foo table look like?

Mine is:

foos
------------
|id|bar_id|name|created_at|updated_at|
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