Question

I am trying to access the constant VALID_FIND_OPTIONS defined in ActiveRecord::Base (active_record/base.rb Line 2402 Rails 2.3.5).

ActiveRecord::Base::VALID_FIND_OPTIONS

I get the NameError exception.

NameError: uninitialized constant ActiveRecord::Base::VALID_FIND_OPTIONS

I have accessed the class constants in other libraries using the similar syntax before. I am not sure where I am going wrong.

Answer 1

The constant VALID_FIND_OPTIONS was defined inside the anonymous class of ActiveRecord::Base, hence it was not accessible as ActiveRecord::Base::VALID_FIND_OPTIONS

module ActiveRecord
  class Base
    class << self
      # the constant belongs to the scope of the anonymous class
      VALID_FIND_OPTIONS = [..]
    end
  end
end

The constant can be accessed using following syntax:

ActiveRecord::Base.singleton_class::VALID_FIND_OPTIONS